


Flavors

by literamancy



Series: Junk from the Garbage Pit [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, I said i might not add more nine+ chapters ago, Junkrat voice "Happy birthday", i just really like these two and want to know more about them, sooo...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-12 08:30:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 32,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7094359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literamancy/pseuds/literamancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roadhog considers himself a connoisseur of whatever Junkrat dishes out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Taste

There were different tastes to Junkrat’s crazy, and Roadhog was nothing if not a connoisseur. He’d been with the shit for years now, and had sampled each of the servings offered. The spice of the fucker trying to blow him up, the smoothness of his explosion driven mania, the sourness of shaking fear, and the tartness of his irritation. Yeah, Roadhog was well acquainted with any dish Junkrat could serve up to him. Jamie Fawkes, however, was a different chef entirely, and it was definitely him in charge of the oven at the moment.

 

Hog should have known better, really, and he was stupid for not following his gut when he had the chance. It was his biggest decider most of the time, but he let fucking Overwatch pick the path. Fucking Overwatch. Yeah it had been profitable joining up, and Mercy did things for Rat that Hog couldn’t. Shit, the Swiss doctor brought a kind of calm to Junkrat Hog had very rarely seen. But she lost a lot of points with this little fuck up.

 

They were, or that is, Roadhog was supposed to be protecting this big CEO of this big company that was making great strides in preventative measures against the omnics. Nothing big enough to wipe them out, but big enough to keep them out of major computer systems. It was one of the things fast tracking the peace between humans and omnics, the guarantee of some kind of security. Hog didn’t give two shits, the man he used to be would, but the pay was good.

 

It was Hog’s job, but he was still Rat’s guard too. Rat would have been safe at the Overwatch Headquarters, but the fucker refused to stay behind. Roadhog had done his best to get him to stay, but he was much more pleased he had been stubborn and came with. This CEO was annoying as all fuck, and without Rat’s distraction Hog might’ve killed him by now.

 

The man did nothing in his own favor by continuously making Rat twitchier than usual.

 

Hog put a steadying hand on Rat’s shoulder. He was so sure what it was Rat that was serving, so sure he knew how to compliment the dish and balance it. Rat did calm a tad under his hand. It was the crowd, Hog was sure, Rat was never good in them. “Nice outfit,” Hog huffed. Rat glanced down at his ridiculous getup and let out a high pitched giggle. Hog hummed, pleased in able to vent the canister. No explosion coming yet.

 

“Least mine fits,” Rat hissed. Hog smiled under his mask. The CEO had insisted they look like his regular guards. Idiot. There wasn’t a person in the crowd that didn’t know them, if not by name then by his mask and Rat’s perpetually singed hair. Rat was in camo, and a shirt. Roadhog was also in camo, but no shirt under his vest. The CEO had somehow managed to find a bulletproof vest that fit him, but not a damned shirt. It had been last minute. The CEO had wanted McCree, or Tracer. But they had bigger fish to fry. Or to make sure didn’t fry. Hog didn’t much pay attention to what the others did.

 

The CEO wrapped up his little speech and waved as they descended from the stage. Hog gave Rat a little nod, and the little man limped ahead to walk ahead of the CEO. Hog had a better view from behind, and he had a lot of shit to be looking out for.

 

From his vantage point it made sense he saw the person with the gun. His own was in his hand nearly before the threat registered in his head for what it was. He was in front of his target, and Rat, the next moment. A lot of people took his size for slowness. You don’t get to be slow in the outback and get to tell about it.

 

The bullet wound was like a line of fire along his side. Didn’t slow him though, and he was sure to return the attack in full. The man staggered, should have fallen, but instead it was just the man’s hat that fell. Not a man then, one of the circuit suckers.

 

“Get him to the car, Rat,” Hog huffed. He could already make out five more threats making their way towards them. He finished off the one before him.

 

There was no maniacal laughter behind him to confirm his direction heard. There were no resounding explosions clearing them a path between the cluttered cars (sane people were already running).

 

It was then that Roadhog realized he had fucked up.

 

He wiped his head around. Rat was gone.

 

“I’m going to skin that little cu-” Hog grunt at another bullet wound, and grabbed the CEO. He would have to laugh about his undignified squawk after. He pulled the man bodily towards the armored car even as he gave suppressing fire. One went down on the first shot, human then. Not all robots. Hog would have to tell someone about that. Not sure who, but someone.

 

They hit the car. The CEO was spluttering at how Hog had him shoved up against it. His hand freed up Hog ripped open the door. He shoved the man in.

 

“Drive,” he said to the sweating man in front. The girl in the passenger seat readied her gun.

 

“Get in.”

 

“Nah, gotta find the other guy,” he said. She held his gaze, then nodded.

 

“Drive idiot,” she snapped at the driver. Hog slammed the door closed. Something slammed him into the metal. He threw an elbow back, and then leveled the barrel against its metal cranium. He pulled the trigger. The car peeled away.

 

Yeah, Overwatch wouldn’t be happy he didn’t go with them, but he had been paid to be with Rat longer.

 

The attackers had wised up on the game now, and were up far and high. They took lucky shots at him as he gave the opportunity. If he wasn’t so furious (worried) about Rat he wouldn’t have given as many as he did.

 

“Get your scrawny ass back here,” Hog roared. He threw his hook, and dragged one of the men towards him. He didn’t waste a bullet, just crushed his neck and threw him aside.

 

The firefight was brief, and left Hog bloody. His thoughts were not charitable by the end of it. He clicked one of his healing canisters into his mask. It took two breaths for him to stop wheezing, and to walk steadier even if it tasted like a slimy asshole.

 

“Rat, I am going to wring your scrawny goddamned neck,” he growled. He took a minute to calm his breathing, and then held his breath so he could hear around the rasping of the filters. That was when he heard it.

 

He found Rat in a dead end alley, curled in on himself behind a pile of trash. Roadhog didn’t realize until he put a hand on the whipcord thin man’s shoulder that it wasn’t Junkrat, it was Jamie Fawkes.

 

At his touch Jamie whirled with a yowl, and punched Hog in the face, hard. Hard enough he spun the mask enough to obscure Hog’s vision. Surprised more than anything, he fell back on his ass, and Jamie was driving his human foot and the sharp stick of his prosthetic into Hog’s front. He was nearly over and away from Hog by the time he reacted, and caught him by the ankle. Jamie yowled again, spat and scratched, and screamed like he was being gutted. It was something Hog had been considering a minute ago, but now he was getting a sick feeling in the back of his throat.

 

The skinny fuck hadn’t even gone for an explosive.

 

Roadhog jerked Jamie back to him, and caught him with one arm. He pinned him to his side. He made sure he got both arms under his one. He fixed his mask best he could with the one hand. He tightened his hold with Jamie’s thrashing, and did his best to ignore what he was saying. Most of it was nonsense, but Hog didn’t like the things he did listen to. He was acutely aware that it wasn’t anything Rat would be sharing with him if he was in his right mind, as right as it ever was.

 

“Let me go,” he finally sobbed. Hog almost dropped him. Instead he set him on his feet, and crouched in front of him.

 

“Rat?”

 

There were clean streaks on his boss’s face from tears that were still leaking from dazed eyes. “I’ll be good, let me go.” Rat, Jamie, wasn’t looking at him. Hog contemplated him. He knew how to deal with Junkrat; Jamie was a foreign creature to him.

 

“Yeah, okay,” Hog said finally, and let go of where he had been gripping Rat’s biceps. Jamie still didn’t look up at him, just stood there, small and trembling and crying, and looking all the world like he was waiting to get hit. Maybe he was.Roadhog didn’t ask about his life. “Jamie,” he said, finally. Jamie twitched. “Junkrat, look at me.”

 

It took him minutes to do it, but he did. Roadhog just held his gaze. Slowly the crying stopped, the trembling stopped. Jamie was shoved back to wherever it was Junkrat kept him. He blinked at Hog, looking dazed.

 

“Alright?”

 

“Shove it,” Rat snapped, thick voiced, and spun away. Hog got up with a sigh that was half in relief for his knees and half just in relief. He gave Rat a minute to clean himself up by rubbing more gunpowder over his face. Hog let him set the pace, eyes trained on him as if he had had old Soldier 76 teach him his shooting trick, and followed him out of the alley.

 

Hog knew every taste of Junkrat’s crazy. At least, he thought he had. Turns out five (six?) years wasn’t all that much as he thought.

 

He didn’t know what was on his plate right now as they found a motorcycle, got it running, and Rat got on behind him. He didn’t know what went with this dish. Didn’t know how he ever thought himself a connoisseur. The taste in his mouth was as alien to him as the white knuckled grip Rat had on him as he drove them back on the job.

 

Roadhog didn’t like it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: Turned the healing 'potion' into a healing canister for his mask based on Scrunchles idea from their fic Two for Flinching. (I asked too, don't worry!) It is such a good idea, and fits for him a lot better than a liquid medicine.
> 
> GO CHECK OUT TWO FOR FLINCHING IT WAS A BIG INSPIRATION FOR THIS!!!!


	2. Aftertaste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trouble at work with the garbage duo.

There were consequences because of course there were. It wasn’t something Roadhog thought about on the jet ride back. He had been too focused on how quiet and still Junkrat had been. It had been an Overwatch jet. They were some of the few that got regular use of the three Overwatch jets (the others being Winston and Zenyatta as airlines just refused to let them on). Most everyone else had to fly with the masses. Hog almost wished they were on a civvie flight now, if only so he could listen to Junkrat grumble about screeching babies and middle seats.

 

Instead his boss had a faraway look in his eye that Hog didn’t know how to handle.

 

“You had one job!” Winston roared upon their arrival. Hog was sore and tired and, fuck, he was worried about Rat’s continued odd behavior. He didn’t know what it meant, and he didn’t want to deal with the gorilla at the moment. “Stay with the target! He could have died!”

 

“He didn’t,” Hog said, and tried to walk past the chimp with his and Rat’s luggage.

 

“He nearly did. Did you even check on him after? It will be a miracle if he lets us close to him again! I had to pull Tracer from her job to do damage control with this.I had to send Fareeha to take over for her,” Winston snarled. Hog stopped, and turned his own snarl on the beast. “What, did you see a store you just HAD to break into? Some purses needing snatching?”

 

“I already told you we ain’t cut out for this hero shit. Ain’t my fault you didn’t listen you big-”

 

“It was my fault,” Junkrat said. They both looked at him. He shrugged. “Thought I saw someone take off, gave chase. I was wrong.” Winston huffed in irritation, but Mercy had come up behind Junkrat and shook her pretty little head. Hog continued to start at Rat. With how prevalent cameras were, and how easily a number of Overwatch people could hack ‘em, there was no way the lie would hold up.

 

Junkrat started to fidget under their joint regard.

 

“While certainly not ideal, the mission was a success,” Mercy said, drawing everyone’s attention. “We can go over the details later, and issue citations as needed. For now it would be best for me to take a look at both of you, and then for you to get settled in. Nothing will come from this when everyone is tired.”

 

Another look at Mercy and Winston showed Hog that they had bags under their eyes. He wondered, in the back of his mind, what it was that Talon had done now to run ‘em so ragged. He wondered too if he and Rat wouldn’t have been better off taking the other group up on their offer to join.

 

“Gentlemen,” Mercy said, nodding towards the medical wing of the Overwatch Headquarters. With a parting glare at Winston, Roadhog trailed after her and Junkrat.

 

The doctor was polite and proficient in her work. She saw to Junkrat first mostly because Roadhog lifted him by the back of his grenade harness and plopped him down on the examination table. Roadhog wandered away, but within reach should Rat need him, to give them privacy. He tuned them out as he looked over some diagrams of the human body. Wasn’t anything he hadn’t ever seen up close and personal before to varying degrees of depth.

 

Eventually Junkrat was released from Mercy’s scrutiny. He was back to his twitchy self.. “Go get something to eat Jamie,” she said. Her voice was kind, but it was not a request. Rat glanced at Hog, who nodded at him. The skinny fuck needed to get some food in him. Hog hadn’t managed to get him to eat since he found him in the alley yesterday.

 

Mercy turned her attention to Roadhog, and sighed. “What,” he huffed.

 

“Just sit,” she said, giving her pretty little head a shake. He huffed again, but deigned to obey. He sat on a chair though, so she would be able to reach some of his higher up bullet wounds. “I don’t often see you so bloody, Hog.” She was smart not to use his old name. She hadn’t been so smart on their first meeting. He had educated her with some harsh words quickly enough. “Distracted, were we?”

 

Roadhog just grunted.

 

Mercy worked in silence for a while. “What happened to Jamie?”

 

“Dunno. One minute he was there, next he wasn’t.” They had an odd sort of truce when it came to Junkrat. He answered her questions, she told him how to take care of Rat. Simple as that. “Seemed lost in himself. Was Jamie, not Junkrat.”

 

“They are the same person.”

 

“They’re not,” Hog said. She hummed after a minute, and let that sore spot drop. “You gunna talk to him?”

 

“Haven’t you?”

 

“Dunno how. Heard some things. Don’t think I was supposed to. He wasn’t there, was somewhere else.”

 

“I think… I think I will do some research first, try to find out what I am dealing with before approaching him. Have an idea for what I am in for so I have a better idea of how to deal with it,” she said at length.

 

Hog snorted, “good luck with that one. Where we are from is an information black hole thanks to the circuit suckers.” She frowned at his wording, but didn’t push it. Overwatch had some background on their origins. She knew what the omnics were to them. That was also the end of the conversation. She finished patching him up, and sent him to get some food.

 

Roadhog sat heavily next to Junkrat, and dumped some of the potatoes from his plate onto Junkrat’s. “Hey!”

 

“A donut isn’t a meal,” Roadhog grunted, and slapped one of the five steaks next to the potatoes. “Eat it.”

 

“Eat a dick,” Rat grumbled, but spooned some potatoes into his mouth. They were the only ones besides a small group of Overwatch civvies. It was something the others did, took in some civvies that lost everything in the fighting and gave them a place to be, a job. It kept the headquarters running by having people to do the day to day thing. Fortunately the civvies always gave the two of them plenty of elbow room.

 

Roadhog pushed up his mask so he could eat, and no farther. He was disappointed when Junkrat didn’t go about his usual show of trying to get a peek at his face. His boss was still out of it despite the few moments of stability Mercy had brought him. Seems Jamie did not go sweetly into that goodnight, and was fighting from wherever Rat shoves him to get back out.

 

Mercy would talk to him, straighten things out. It was what she was good at. Helping people.

 

“Don’t,” Hog warned when it seemed Rat was getting read to slap his mashed potatoes with his hand, and send them everywhere. Junkrat huffed, quietly, but listened instead of his usual swearing and doing it anyways. He ate more potatoes.

 

They finished up in their own time. Longer than they would usually take, but still faster than most people. A handful of months in relative safety didn’t break year's worth of necessity. They didn’t always get the luxury of taking time to eat.

 

They made their way to their rooms after. Everyone got a small apartment in the Overwatch headquarters. Roadhog and Junkrat shared one. It wasn’t big, big enough to fit Hog comfortably, but it worked for them. Neither said goodnight to each other, they didn’t need to.

 

Hog wasn’t overly surprised when Rat came into his room later that night, and made a little nest for himself on the floor by the bed. Roadhog didn’t bother trying to give him the mattress. Junkrat would take the floor even if Roadhog gave up the bed. Its how Junkrat was. Roadhog wondered, to himself, how long it had been how Junkrat was.

 

“Hey, Hog?”

 

“Hm?” Roadhog grunted. There wasn’t any answer. It took so long that Roadhog thought he had imagined it, and was flirting with the edges of sleep by the time he was confirmed.

 

“Just making sure you’re still here,” Junkrat, Jamie, whoever it was, said very quietly and small in the dark.

  
Roadhog, jetlagged and sore, couldn’t get his eyes to open backup to tell him, ‘ _course idiot._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finger guns. garbage husbands. going to keep this as finished because idk how much i will add to this?? so yeah.


	3. Backwash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i don't know what i am doing but neither does junkrat

Junkrat didn’t usually wander around without Roadhog around, but they were grounded at Overwatch headquarters. It was safe enough, and he couldn’t stand watching Roadhog tinker with his bike anymore. Made him want to tinker with some things of his own, but he actually sort of liked some of the people here.

 

D.Va, for instance, was fun, and Lucio even if he didn’t understand either of their tastes in music. It wasn’t so easy for Junkrat to make, well, friends he guessed though even that seemed a strong word. He was just too much for a lot of people. Hell, he was too much for Hog a lot of the time. But D.Va, Hana, she was a lot too, and Lucio just seemed to like a lot. Hana’s humor was a lot like Hog’s, though with less sharp edges. Lucio didn’t have a sharp edge. Those both helped.

 

“Rat!” Hana sang, bounding down the hall towards him. He still flinched at how quickly and how closely she came, but he smiled.

 

“G’day Hana. How was Germany?”

 

“Great. Beat a high score.”

 

“In a game, or…?”

 

“In a game while in a fight,” Lucio informed, and put his arm on her head like an armrest. She shoved him off with irritable affection.

 

“I also got some fantastic footage of Lucio not only skating  _ up  _ a guy but kicking him out, and then taking out a guy behind him. It was,” she added something in korean that sounded like a compliment. “He should work it into his next music video.”

 

“I already told Hana that I don’t try to convey that sort of thing in my music,” the Brazilian laughed. Hana was already pulling up a youtube video of it, and Rat whistled appreciatively. He was glad the two were back. With Hog’s attention elsewhere (and fuck, the big man didn’t talk all that much as it was) his head was getting a bit loud. He was glad the two were here to drown it with something else.

 

“Dunno mate that is pretty impressive. You could, you could make it seem like the people fighting against the fist of the suppressors or some shit!” Rat said, and punched his own palm in emphasis. Only he punched his prosthetic, and yelped.

 

“Shit man,” Lucio said with a wince even as Hana started cackling. “And nah, I don’t want anyone going to get killed, you know?”

 

Rat looked at him with a blank stare.

 

“Junkrat grew up in Australia Lucio. If you weren’t wrestling crocodiles by your third birthday you were the family shame. He doesn’t understand that other parts of the world are so soft,” Hana said so seriously Junkrat thought, for a hot second, that she was genuinely mocking him. But then she smiled at him, and is was conspiratorially instead of sharply like he was used to.

 

“Yeah mate. Me mum shoved me into a kangaroo’s pouch when i was two months old because I was such a disgrace. Couldn’t catch a snake barehanded or nothing till I was one and a half.”

 

“Ha ha,” Lucio said with a roll of his eyes. Hana snorted, and jostled Junkrat. He flinched again, but not as hard. She noticed, but didn’t say anything. Neither did Lucio. That was nice too. A lot of people tended to mention it, like Reinhart. They also didn’t start trying to say what he should change about himself either, like the doctor (she did help, yeah, but it was a constant thing with her).

 

“How was London, Rat?” Lucio asked. Rat looked away. He didn’t see the look the other two shared.

 

“W’sfine,” he mumbled.

 

“Something happen dude?” Hana asked. Rat shrugged. They had stopped walking. Rat hadn’t noticed when they had started. He had just followed, fell along so easy with them. Jesus fuck this was like him joining the Junkers, like  _ that  _ had been such a good goddamned idea. He was such an idiot. He needed to fucking stop just fallin’ in with people they just wanted him for one thing or another they-

 

“I’m sure it will work out buddy,” Lucio said, and put a hand on his shoulder. Junkrat flinched, and his hand stopped its journey up to his hair where it was going to pull pull pull.

 

“Yeah. Should’ve seen some of the other fuck ups we’ve had. Actually, I think one of my fans made a compilation. Let’s go to my place to watch ‘em. Come on, come on,” she said, and grabbed both of their arms. Junkrat let her pull him along with some grumbling, but it was making his trembling stop. Lucio, meanwhile, leaned back on his heelys so he had to do the least amount of movement possible. His grin could only be described as shit eating when he caught Junkrat looked at his shoes with envy. Hana set a brisk pace.

 

Some of the ‘Overwatch’s Overworst’ moments were, truly, incredibly impressive. Hana’s room was nice too. It was covered in all sorts of Korean knick knacks that Junkrat’s fingers itched to take. Roadhog would appreciate the pig stuffed animal, he was sure, but Hana was… well she  _ wasn’t  _ someone trying to hit him or hurt him, so he left it be.

 

“What’s that one about?” Rat asked, pointing to the video in the queue that showed an impressive firework display.

 

“Oh, that was a video for, hm, what was it,” Hana said and lapsed into her native language as she thought to herself. She clicked on the video while she thought. She snapped her fingers when it started playing. “That’s what I thought. The International Fireworks Festival. Duh. It’s got real touristy in the last couple of years, but the fireworks are still nice,” she said. Junkrat nodded, and scooted closer to the tv to get a better view of the lights. They sat in quiet for the next minute and a half as the video played out.

 

“Those were some nice ones,” Rat said after, and blinked a few times. He wondered if he could get any of his to do that. Sure, nothing got taken out with them, but the colors were nice. He wasn’t sure what the point was without them breaking anything, but they made his chest light so that was also nice.

 

“You ain’t never seen fireworks before man?” Lucio asked. Junkrat shook his head, and scowled a little. Lucio let out a surprised chuckle. “Would have thought you of anyone would have.”

 

“Waz that supposed to mean mate?”

 

“Just you like blowing up stuff. Thought you would have been all over fireworks.”

 

“We ain’t have any of those were I grew up,” Junkrat grumbled.

 

“Yeah, the crocodiles ate them all,” Hana said with such seriousness again it surprised laughter from them.

 

They surprised Junkrat, constantly, with how easy the two were to be around. Despite how tense he was getting her joke had killed the danger in the air, and the relaxation was back. From there they shifted into sharing music (though he let them pick it) and just...being. No goal, no point to it. Just… being in each other's company. Hana chattered away to fill in the silence just as it seemed to get too much for Rat. He was messing with one of the dolls Hana had on her couch. Eventually she nabbed another, and they acted out a rather intense drama.

 

Hana was laughing at a joke Lucio just told when it all got too much for Rat. It was like being thrown into ice water, like the aftermath of an explosion when you were too close, cut the cord too short, and were left in ringing silence.

 

He set the doll aside. “Gunna go see what Hog is doing,” he said, and shot up to his feet. His suddenness surprise them, he could see it on their faces, but they just smiled.

 

“Catch you later Junkman.”

 

“Let's eat together dude,” Hana sang. He made a noise that might have been an agreement, but sounded distracted even to him. He beat a hasty retreat. His hands were shaking. He wanted c4, or something he could mix together to make blow. Something big enough to hit him with a shockwave, and leave him with a feeling he could focus on. He couldn’t breath, and he tugged at his grenade vest. But he wasn’t wearing it, and then he couldn’t stop shaking because he didn’t have  _ any  _ bombs on him.

 

He had seen a face he thought he had known in the crowd, back in London. It's why he had run even though some part of him knew, knew, knew he shouldn’t have. A face that seemed familiar, like he had known them in another life. But it didn’t make sense. He wasn’t friends with no pile of scrap. Why then why then had he known that face,  _ why- _

 

_ We’ll go together,  _ bounced around in his head, made him choke.  _ We’ll go together and it will be fine. _

 

“Watch it,” Hog snapped as Junkrat ran headfirst into him. He caught Rat as he rebounded. Rat looked up at him, surprised. He didn’t realize he had been running. Hog titled his head, taking in Rat’s panicked breathing, and trembling. “Something-”

 

“Fuck you on about mate,” Junkrat snapped, and jerked away. “You watch it. What where you are going mate. Fucker. Taking up the whole fucking hall. Damnit. Fucking shit.”

 

Hog snorted, and fell in behind Rat. Rat continued to grumble in annoyance, but he was glad Hog was there. His heavy steps were making it easier not to thinking about… about whatever that had been. Something in him recoiled at it, that… whatever it is that seemed to share his grey matter for a minute there.

 

He stopped suddenly. Maybe he should have Mercy look at… Nah.

 

“You wanna not do that,” Hog grumbled, having almost run into him.

 

“You wanna maybe not walk so fucking close to me motherfucker?” Rat shot back. Hog snorted again. He was glad Hog could take him when he was like this. It was good to know he had something to weather himself against. He doubted that was healthy.

 

“We going somewhere particular?” Hog asked when Rat had stood there, frozen, for who knew how long.

 

“Yeah, course we are, duh,” Rat said. But he pivoted on his built leg, and took a sharp left. He found stairs and went up up up until Hog wasn’t the only one wheezing.

 

He was pretty sure no one was technically supposed to be out here on the roof. It was windy as all fuck, and cold enough to freeze off a tit, but it was bracing at the moment. Rat gave the entirety of it a look with a critical eye, thinking on how one could set up charges  to do this, or that, and how the wind being channeled by the mountain peaks would affect it. The snow on the mountains were all a fucking travesty, but damn would it look pretty lit up with reds and blues and yellows.

 

“Cold out here,” Hog commented when it had been another undetermined amount of time. Rat grunted, and realized he couldn’t feel the fingers of either his hands. “You’re lips ‘re blue.”

 

“Your d-d-d-dick is blue,” Rat retorted. He gave the roof another look. “What you know ‘bout f-fireworks?” Hog shrugged. “You think we could hav’em here? Hana showed me a video. I like them. I think. Useless as an umbrella on your drink, but p-pretty.” Hog shrugged again. “Some help you are.”

 

“Think if you were t’have a fireworks show you’d need t’bring a coat,” Hog muttered.

 

“Yeah, okay, okay,” Rat huffed, and they went back inside. He still stared out the little cross wired glass window set in the metal maintenance door to the roof. He was thinking real hard about explosions, but with the thought of sending them up instead of taking something else down. Bit backasswards thinking for him, all things considered.

 

He wasn’t paying attention to how he groped blindly back for Roadhog. Somewhere in his brain registered Roadhog’s huff, and how the big man did, infact, move closer so that he could offer him the body heat he was seeking without thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how often do australians use c**t? where i am it is a super offensive word so i keep shying away from it but it seems like an Australian thing. maybe i will just say eff it all and start throwing in mad max terms since the canon fucking comic references fury road. Also I looked it up: D.VA is 19 and Lucio 26. Junkrat is 25. If I keep doing stuff with this might mess with Hog's age, but it would make sense the younger gremlins would hang out with Lucio.


	4. The Most Important Meal of The Day

The general rule of thumb, Roadhog had found, when it came to Junkrat’s plans was that if he was still chomping at the bit in 24 hours he was pretty serious about something. It was one of the things Hog was happier to have learned about Rat. He was not pleased when he put in a decent number of man hours on a heist only to find Rat had moved on. It had almost gotten the little fuck strangled a few times.

 

However, Rat seemed rather bent on the fireworks show, so Roadhog gave a mental shrug, and started doing his job (he wondered if he should be wondering when this had become part of the job description; he mentally shrugged again at the thought).

 

“Need a favor,” he said over breakfast to Mercy. She had been surprised he had sat with her. Rat was still hooing and humming over what donut to get, so Hog talked fast. “Make Winston say yes to a fireworks show on the roof.”

 

“...Excuse me?”

 

“Rat wants to do fireworks.”

 

“Roadhog, I don’t think I can-”

 

“Just make it work,” he said, and then held up a hand to stop any argument. Rat had made his choice, and was coming over.  It would be good for Rat to think it was something he pulled off on his own.

 

Mercy pursed her lips in irritation, but it blended easily into a smile when Junkrat sat. “Good Morning Jamie.”

 

“What’s up doc?” Junkrat asked, and then laughed. “You know, like that bunny?”

 

“Oh, I know that one,” McCree said, taking up place on Roadhog’s other side. Hog gave his breakfast, black coffee, a critical look. He shrugged at the big man. “I always liked the duck.”

 

“I don’t think I know what you are talking about,” Mercy admitted. Roadhog grabbed one of the egg sandwiches off of his plate, and put it on top of Rat’s.

 

“Ah, watch it, you’re going to smoosh the sprinkles!”

 

“The bottom of the sandwich will have sprinkles,” Hana said, joining them. Her plate was covered in colorful donuts. Lucio followed them. He had some fruit on his.

 

Roadhog scowled under his mask. This wasn’t his plan when he sat with Mercy.

 

“How’d London go big guy?” McCree asked.

 

“How’d Japan go?” Hog returned lowly. McCree choked on his coffee.

 

“I was in China.”

 

“You took a detour,” Hog said. McCree scowled.

 

“Both went fine, if you must know. Ass. Got some interesting info for the big ape.”

 

“He’s a gorilla,” Mercy said.

 

“Yeah yeah. He is grumpy with the diet Athena put him on. Either way, got some intel. Talon is scooping up as many mines as they can get their hands on.”

 

“And?” Hog huffed.

 

“Well, all the workers are being dismissed, and replaced with some nice shiny new guys, you get me?” Hog snorted at McCree again, unimpressed.

 

“If they are thinking to win the omnics to their side they ruined that by killing Tekhartha Mondatta,” Lucio said around some grapefruit.

 

“They’ve been trying to blame that on Tracer, actually. She was there too you know,” Hana added.

 

“Who was that?” Rat asked.

 

“Some omnic treehugger,” Hog said. Mercy gave him a look.

 

“Tekhartha Mondatta made great strides in human omnic peace. He made King’s Row livable for both the humans and the omnics that resided there.”

 

 

“Pfft. Should have sent him to the Outback. Would have showed him some real work,” Rat grumbled, and squished some sprinkles on his plate with his thumb. Roadhog rotated the plate until the untouched sandwich was closer to Rat. The thinner man scowled, and took a vindictive bite out of it.

 

“How’d you get all this info, McCree?” Lucio asked. McCree winked and sipped his coffee.

 

“Inside source.”

 

“He doesn’t want to kiss and tell,” Hana said. McCree choked on his coffee again.

 

“Aw, cute,” Lucio said.

 

“That’s not, I’m not, shut up!”

 

“Still, I wonder if that has anything to do with all the astrophysicists that have gone missing,” Mercy said to herself.

 

“What’s an astrophysicist?” Junkrat asked.

 

“Star scientist,” Lucio explained.

 

“Why do stars need their own scientists?” Rat followed up with.

 

“Stars are, like, the original explosions dumby,” Hana laughed, and started explaining thermonuclear reactions to Junkrat.

 

Roadhog rolled his eyes, and finished his breakfast. He didn’t really care about what Talon was doing (or who McCree was). They weren’t his problem until he and Rat were sent out to do something. Even then, they weren’t really his problem per say, but more his target. The little bit of resistance between him, and a big fat paycheck. And the paychecks from Overwatch were pretty fat. He wondered, for a minute, where that money came from. Then he decided he didn’t care so long as it kept coming to him.

 

They went back to their apartment after that. Junkrat had been doing a lot of research on how to make fireworks, and drawing up a lot of schematics that made absolutely no sense to Roadhog. They looked like a lot of scribbles to him, but Rat assured him (without him asking) that they would make a bitchin’ show. “Even you will like it big guy,” Rat said with confidence.

 

Roadhog was, on the other hand, doing his best to make some clothes for himself. It was shockingly hard to find clothing in his size considering how many people were his size. Maybe not his exact size, but close e-fucking-nough. He also fixed up some of Rat’s clothes too. The fucker ruined clothing real damn fast.

 

“Hog, mate,” Rat said. Roadhog just grunted. “You’re going to go, right?”

 

Hog looked up at him.

 

“To the fireworks.”

 

Hog snorted, and turned back to the stitches. “Course. Idiot.”

 

“Okay, yeah, good. Good.”

 

Rat went to talk to Winston later that day. The big ape said no to the rooftop (“Jamie, you will cause an avalanche. The beach would work though. I like fireworks. Can there be some of those crackling ones?”) Rat was a little put out by the fact they couldn’t use the roof, but didn’t seem entirely opposed to a different location. The two of them, with Hana and Lucio, went to check out the beach. It was about an hour drive down from the Headquarters up in the mountains, and a noticeable increase in temperature on the way down. The sun was near setting by the time they made it.

 

Overwatch had a small port to the ocean, and a couple of boats. It’s how they got a lot of stuff onto the man made island (well, gorilla made; Winston had perfected the technology as he liked to remind people). It was a nice little beach. The sand was not like the sand in the Outback. It was soft. Someone could sleep on it, and wake up again after. Roadhog ignored how the kids were bickering on where best to blow shit up, and took his boots off. He dug his toes into the sand pleased on how easily it shifted for him. It was all hard packed and stung in his part of the Outback. Radiation did that. Roadhog went to the water’s edge, and let it tickle his toes. It was warm enough. If he felt like swimming he would do it here.

 

He jumped, and turned with a snarl when something splashed him. Hana froze, and looked a bit panicked. She was in the water without shoes on too, now, and was clearly the perpetrator.

 

Rat burst into laughter, and Hog relaxed a bit. Hana was an impressive fighter in her own way, and a bit annoying. However, she didn’t seem to mean any harm to him, and was nice enough to Rat. “Little shit,” Hog said. It was said like some sort of apology. She smiled a little, and straightened. The next second Lucio had tackled her, and the two went side ways into the water with accompanied yelling.

 

“Ass!” Hana said, and started swearing in Korean while Lucio just laughed. Hog stepped back so he wouldn’t be splashed more. The ends of his pants were wet now. He had stepped deeper into the water. The two, now soaked, continued to chase each other with water. Rat, safe and sound on the sand, stayed completely dry.

 

“What a bunch of fucking idiots!” he howled, holding his sides. Hog snorted, and joined him up on the sand. “Look at ‘em Hog. Damn!”

 

“What, you just scared of getting wet there Rat?” Hana demanded. He snorted, and stuck his tongue out at her.

 

“You couldn’t pay me enough to get in the water!”

 

“We could pay Hog. How much would it take big guy?” Hana asked.

 

“Depends. How much would you pay for me to keep you out?” Hog asked Rat. Rat looked up at him in shock. There was a moment of silence before the other two burst out laughing.

 

“That’s cold man,” Lucio said.

 

“Thought we was friends mate,” Rat huffed with a betrayed look. Hog ruffled his hair.

 

“It’s not like they were asking me to kill you,” Hog said. Rat scowled even deeper.

 

“Yeah, and how much would _that_ cost?”

 

The other two went back to splashing each other. “Think you already know the answer to that one,” Hog said after a bit. Rat didn’t say anything to that. They stood together, quietly, for a while. The sun was set now, and the stars were coming out. Hog rubbed his neck. “Think it might look nice doing it out there,” he said, and gestured lamely to the ocean.

 

“Whatta you mean?” Rat said cautiously.

 

“Set up a dock or something, set ‘em off from out there. They would reflect on the water. Stars all up behind ‘em. Ain’t enough light pollution out here to block ‘em,” Hog said. They both looked up at the sky, now littered with pinpricks of light. “Outback used to be like this.”

 

“Yeah?” Rat asked, hushed.

 

“Yeah, before the radiation clouds. Used to be nice, lookin’ up at ‘em after a long day. Hmph,” Hog rolled his shoulders. He went to get his boots. “Let’s get going,” he called to the other two.

 

Hana and Lucio were sequestered to the back of the jeep for the ride back while they dried. Hog took the wheel, with Rat riding shotgun. The backseat fell quiet pretty fast; the two were still a bit jetlagged. Hog would be too, if he wasn’t already used to running odd hours with Rat as it was. Rat was looking out the window, at the stars, in contemplation most of the ride back. Hog would be worried about how he wasn’t messing with the buttons, aside from the fact he was still twitchy as all fuck. He wondered if the episode from a few days ago was a fluke, and something he could forget about. His gut was telling him otherwise. “Something wrong?”

 

“Was the Outback a lot different, before?” Rat asked, as if he had been waiting for the prompting. Hog shrugged.

 

“Dusty, hot, everything ready to kill you.”

 

“ _Before_ ya big dick.”

 

“Yeah, that’s what I was talking about,” he said with a chuckle. He thought for a minute, “The big difference, really, was the size of the bugs, and the sky. There was a lot less radiation too. It was…” Hog shrugged again. It was a lot of things to the man he used to be. Was a lot less to him now. “Look it up when we get back. Sure there are vids. There was a guy that made a zoo and had a tv show. You might like him.”

 

Rat hummed, and looked back out the window. “I like the stars, Hog.”

 

“Yeah, me too kid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title is now: just write a drabble, you'll get it out of your system, and other lies I tell myself.
> 
> Also who would think is on team Overwatch and Team Talon?
> 
> So far I've decided-
> 
> Overwatch-Winston, Tracer, D.Va, Lucio, Reinhart, McCree and our dudes
> 
> Talon-Reaper, Widowmaker, Hanzo (though might be a double agent as implied in this)
> 
> Free Agents- Genji and Zenyatta are kicking it out there, and Bastion is unaffiliated.
> 
> Who you think should go where?


	5. Midnight Snack

Junkrat followed his new bodyguard through the crowded bar. He skittered away whenever anyone got too close. It got to the point that he was nearly clinging to the big man. It was making Roadhog growl at him, and pull his arm away. There were a lot of big guys in this place even if Roadhog was the biggest. Still, Junkrat wasn’t sure how much loyalty his payments would get him. He already knew he bugged the big guy. It had been a couple of months, and, yeah, they had proven a profitable team. But he knew that Roadhog had been chronically solo for as long as he had known about the guy.

 

Weird how finding something equal to a diamond encrusted gold and platinum sculpture of a dick in the bowels of the omnium drove him to approach the monster for the first time ever. First fucking words to the cunt were “keep me alive mate, and we’ll go fifty fifty.” Still couldn’t believe that one had worked.

 

But it was still a new thing, for the both of them, and they were still getting a feel for each other. It’s why Rat was so jittery in the bar. They hadn’t been near so many strangers in a long time.

 

Hog took a seat at the bar, and gestured for a drink. Rat climbed up on a stool next to him. He was vibrating with nerves.

 

“Hey, found you Ratty,” someone said, and grabbed his arm. Rat yelped, and twisted, and automatically reached out for Hog.

 

Hog took his arm, and pressed his gun into the face of the man. Rat knew him, the man was one of the guys that had shared the ruined space of the omnium with him. Or, that is, Rat had been allowed in the space by him, and all the others. Behind the guy were a number of other junkers. They knew, he realized with a sinking feeling, they knew he found something, and were coming to take it from him like so many other good finds.

 

“He really worth it, mate?” the man asked, muffled by the barrel of Hog’s gun. Junkrat was breathing shallowly and shaky. His heart was a goddamned time bomb getting down to the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The junkers all had nightmare faces, and guns themselves. There were eight of them, ten of them, they seemed to keep multiplying before his eyes until it seemed there were more of them than there ever was in the shit hellhole that was the omnium.

 

“So far, yeah.”

 

“How much is it worth it to you to just let go?” the junkers asked, all in one voice all at once, and Rat was sure he was going to vomit. The walls were going gloopy and bleeding through and everything was getting a sickly green tinge.

 

“How much you got?” Hog asked, and the junkers responded with a number whose zeros seemed to go on and on and on and on and-

 

Hog let go.

 

Rat howled as they dragged him away. Betrayed, deeply so, much more deeply than made sense for a couple of months. Hits and kicks and punches and burns and everything they had ever done to him before, but all at once now all together. Junkrat struggled and squirmed. If he could get back to Hog he could offer a better number, and get him to change his mind. Get him to keep him safe.

 

He managed to turn, but Hog was gone. In his place the bar was gone, all that was left was the green grey red black of the Outback, nothing living, and nothing out there for anyone. Empty and dead for miles and miles as far as anyone could see through the smog.

 

Where Hog had been stood a shirtless kid, a little boy, with no face. An achingly familiar omnic stood behind the kid with rusty hands on his shoulders.  _ We’ll go together,  _ the kid said despite not having a face.  _ We’ll go together and it will be fine.  _ It’s mouth was a slash through its skin, lipless and with shark teeth. Junkrat was being pulled towards him now like the pull of the ocean when it needed to make new waves, like it was trying to pull you in deep and hold you tight to its dark and it was why Junkrat never went into the ocean again and they were getting closer and closer to that awful shark toothed mouth that was red and black and Rat was sobbing  _ I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m- _

 

Junkrat slammed onto the floor of his bedroom with a muffled shout. He fought with the blankets he was tangled in. His heart was racing, and the cloth felt too much like arms at the moment.

 

Eventually he woke up enough to figure out where he was. He was at Overwatch. Hog was asleep in the next room. The beginning of his nightmare had happened  _ years  _ ago and had gone down much differently.

 

Rat rubbed his chest as if to disengage the explosive that was his pulse. He remembered Hog asking how much the men had, and they had listed off a ridiculous sum. More money than Rat could even imagine existing in the world, to be perfectly honest. Hog had looked back between the junkers, and Rat. Then the big guy had pulled his trigger, and blew the fucker’s head off.

 

“Not worth it,” Hog had said in his gruff way, had tossed Rat safely behind the bar, and proceeded to tear the fucking place apart. None of the junkers had gotten out in one piece. It had gotten easier having him as a bodyguard after that.

 

Rat pulled on his prosthetics with jittery spider fingers, and gathered up his blanket and numerous pillows. He scrambled out of his room with them, and went to Hog’s door. He opened it, quietly, and peeked in.

 

The big man was face down on the mattress, and snoring like some great fucking monster in the dark. He was half off the damn mattress. His arm would be hanging off the side, Rat knew. Rat smiled, shaky, and crept in. He was unsurprised when the snoring cut off abruptly, and Hog lifted his head.

 

“Was’th’matter?” Hog slurred, hand already reaching for his gun.

 

“Nothing, go back to sleep,” Rat said, and dumped his bundle onto the floor besides Hog’s bed. Hog huffed, and looked around before accepting all was well in the world. Rat wondered if he paid the guy enough.

 

‘Yeah okay. Shut the damn door,” Hog grumbled, and buried his masked face back into his sole pillow. Rat used the light of the hallway to make his blanket/pillow nest just how he liked it before shutting the door. He settled down on it, and took off his prosthetics. He tucked them under Hog’s bed so they would be close by, but no one would step on them in the dark. Back when he was still with the junkers this is how he would sleep only he’d keep the metal arm on (still had both legs then). Wasn’t safe enough to take it off despite how it made his stump itch and chafe.

 

Was safe enough here though, and the bedding was a lot comfier than the tarp he had back in the ruined hulking mass of the omnium. Better company too.

 

Almost as if on cue Hog shifted so his arm was dangling off the bed, and resting on Rat’s head.

 

Rat smiled, and pressed his face more firmly into his pillow. It hadn’t always been so nice to have Hog’s hand on him like that considering originally it had to been to get Rat to go the fuck to sleep. Hog used to have to hold him down until he got tired from fighting him, and would pass out while cursing him. Hog had always kept his hand there to make sure Junkrat never woke up and took off. Somewhere along the way it came a good way for Junkrat to keep track of where he was too.

  
It helped, knowing he wasn’t the only one keeping track of where he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finger guns.


	6. Past Sell By

The fireworks show had to be postponed. D.Va and Lucio got sent out on a mission a few days later, and Junkrat had to wait for the stuff he needed to be shipped to them. It was, for some weird reason, really hard to find Overwatch approved explosive companies that could be trusted with their location. But Mercy helped him, which was pretty chrome, since she fucking owed him.

 

Junkrat was alternating between seething and hyperventilating because Mercy  _ knew  _ something. He wasn’t sure what, but she  _ knew.  _ She kept asking him  _ questions _ , and telling him they could  _ talk  _ and shit like that. He was trying to go over everything he had done in the last two fucking months to figure out what she was going on about. He couldn’t fucking figure it out.

 

And then he remembered London, and a weirdly familiar metal face. It got his skin itching, his heart racing, and his fingers twitching for the detonator.

 

She  _ knew.  _ It was terrifying. Almost scarier than the fact that he didn’t.

 

He avoided her, and stuck close to Hog. Currently they were in the garage because Hog was working on his hog (Rat giggled a little at that). Rat was in the sidecar. He was idly drawing dicks on the inside of the metal shell. He was scooched down so far in it that all anyone could see was his singed hair.

 

“Gunna need to replace these,” Hog muttered to himself, and Rat heard him working out some metal. It clanged a lot less than expected. Hog was nothing but gentle with the ride. Rat had gotten smacked once or twice for mistreatment of the bike. He had asked Hog, once, when they were plastered why he cared about it so much. Hog had told him he had had the bike since before. Before what? He didn’t specify, and his growl had shut Rat up.

 

But it wasn’t Hog’s past Rat was thinking about at the moment, but his own. “What did I do two weeks ago?” he asked.

 

“Clogged the fifth floor toilet with McCree’s hat,” Roadhog informed to fill in the blank of Junkrat’s memory. Rat cackled. It had been worth the bullets he had had to dodge. He was avoiding his own mind by trying to blame Mercy’s concern with recent misbehavior. Hog was helping. He had been answering questions like this all day for Rat.

 

Rat pursed his lips, and paid careful attention to the vein he was adding to the penis.

 

“You ever had someone, mate?” Junkrat asked. Hog grunted in question. “Like, I dunno, like someone you wanted around. Sewed up your pants for you, cleaned out your toes. Shit like that.”

 

“What you on about?” Roadhog asked, and sat up from where he had been under the suspended motorcycle. Junkrat noticed some grease on his little piggy mask, and thought about wiping it off before dismissing the idea. Roadhog didn’t take his mask off for anything, and hated people touching it.

 

Junkrat shrugged, and added some squiggly pubic hair to his dick drawing. “Like… I don’t know, someone to keep watch while you sleep, make sure no one takes your loot. And, and you can trust ‘em to bring it to a fence, and not fuck you over. And share your water and food with, and they won’t take it and tail with it. Like a uh… a special mate, I guess. I don’t know.”

 

Roadhog was quiet long enough that Junkrat slunk down further in his seat. He glanced up to find Hog with his head tilted a little. “You asking if I’ve ever been married? A wife?” he asked, eventually.

 

“No… Yes? Maybe. I don’t know,” Rat said. “Forget it, it was stupid.”

 

Rat focused on his wangs, and added a few more. Eventually Hog leaned on the edge of the sidecar. “What’s up Rat?”

 

“Nothing. Fuck off,” Rat snapped.

 

“You ever have a special mate?”

 

“Course no idiot. Fuck off, go back to your tinkering yeah? God like a fucking mother hen you are. Go find some mud and sit in it,” he grumbled. Roadhog chuckled, and left him be. Rat scowled at his male genitalia drawings. He grumbled swears to himself, and scribbled them out.

 

He didn’t think wife, wife wasn’t the word he was looking for. Wife was soft and stuff. Unless, maybe, if you were married to Pharah, or if someone ever married D.Va (he couldn’t picture it). But wife was like… baked goods and cotton dresses, and cold beers. Least, that was what some of the junkers talked about among other ‘wife’ things. Wifes were also soft beds, and kisses, and ‘yes dears’ in an affectionate voice with an eye roll. That was what some old magazines Rat had found once looked like (there were also the naked ones, but he never really paid attention to those). He had then used them to make a fire. He had gotten bored, and ain’t no one ever taught him much about reading. ‘Sides, a special mate was always another not lady in his head. He hadn’t met any ladies in the Outback. There were some not men, yeah, but they weren’t  _ ladies _ . Like, not cotton dress yes dear ladies. More, touch me stuff, and I blow off your head kind of not men. Rat supposed they must be girls, but they ain’t never acted like girls were supposed to. But then, neither did D.Va or Pharah or Mercy.

 

This train of thought was going in circles, he realized, and he needed to blow up the tracks.

 

Junkrat stuck his fingers to his mouth, and started chewing on his nails. They were gritty and tasted like salt and sharp from some chemicals he had been using earlier. He didn’t wash too well under ‘em, but it should be fine. His brow furrowed.

 

No, he had been thinking… Thinking of a special mate. Someone on the other line of your rope when you are climbing up a sheer wall. They had better grip than him, and if he fell they would keep him from splattering on the floor. They had practiced after all. Rat knew they wouldn’t let him fall. Someone with freckles ‘cross his nose, and dark hair, and happy eyes. Someone who knew how to swim, and would pull Rat out of water if he fell in it like that time with the ocean, and then there they were.

 

Someone like that.

 

Junkrat went real still. There was a shiver up his back, but he didn’t pull away. He remembered the ocean, boiling and rolling like it was. He had been a lot smaller then, if it was possible, and had pissed off the wrong person. He had tried to nab an unopened jar of pickles from this big guy (not as big as Hog, not close, but seemed it back then). He had gotten caught, ‘course, ‘cause no one ever showed him how to properly nick something. And the guy had grabbed him, beat him up nice and proper, and had tossed him off into the water.

 

Junkrat shuddered in the present even as Jamie struggled in the past. He  _ remembered  _ saltwater going into his nose and back of his throat tasting sharp with radiation, and there were grabby crawling things beneath him, waiting to pull him down down down, and the oxygen was far off and even then he knew nothing he had could burn without some oxygen and he was kicking and screaming and getting more water in him than he had ever had more than he could ever drink but he was falling falling falling and something was grabbing grabbing grabbing and he was fighting fighting fighting and and and-

 

And he was on sand, and there was someone like him above him with a split lip. He ain’t never seen no other kid at the omnium, but there he was another kid just like him. Had pulled him up and out of the grabby ocean, and was laughing at him and askin’ him if he was okay. Tellin’ him he ain’t never seen no one go over Meandog’s stuff like that, and that Jamie had some real balls on him, and that he’d like to learn a thing or two from Jamie and that they-

 

 _We’ll go together._ _We’ll go together and it will be fine._ And Jamie had responded, had responded with- with-

 

“Cut that shit out,” Roadhog said, sternly, and took Rat’s now bleeding fingers out of his mouth. “Can’t leave you alone for a second, stupid blighting, uff-” Rat threw himself at Roadhog, and Hog’s arms came up and around him like one of his beartraps. The big man held him in place, a little too tight, and Rat hid his face in Hog’s pec. He had blood in his mouth from his fingers, and was smearing it on Hog. And he was gripping him tight, and smearing blood on him from his hand too.

 

After a second on of the arms loosened, and Hog put a hand on Rat’s head.

 

“Yeah, okay,” Hog huffed. It wasn’t the most comfortable position for either of them. Rat was digging his sharp prosthetics into Hog’s shoulder, and Rat’s hips were being crushed against the side of the cart. “What happened boss?”

 

“Dunno don’t remember, can’t remember what I said,” Junkrat babbled. Hog hummed, and tangled his fingers into Rat’s hair so he was even more immobile. “I dunno what I said Hog, I can’t-”

 

“S’alright boss. Doesn’t matter.”

 

“‘Does, does matter,” Rat slurred. He was feeling sleepy now, but he was pulling back from… from whatever it was he had been thinking out. He couldn’t remember asides from how it was twisty and tangly and dark like the ocean. His mind recoiled from itself. He focused on how Hog smelt like sweat and grease. “What’s going on?”

 

“You were saying you were going to take a nap, and wanted a blanket,” Hog said, and Rat thought maybe he was lying, but Hog lied to him plenty and it was always for his own good. Rat decided he was right, he would like to take a nap.

 

“Did you get it?”

 

“Yeah, let me grab it,” Hog said, but Rat protested when he attempted to pull away. Hog huffed, and picked him up. “You wanna sleep in the sidecar, or..?”

 

“Are you going to work on the bike more?”

 

“I am.”

 

“I’ll sleep in the sidecar. We’ll stick together,” Rat said, and for some reason it made him shudder to say that that way. He tightened his hold on Hog.

 

“I gotcha boss,” Hog said, it was almost soothing if not for the distortion of his mask. Rat almost reached up, his hand jerked that way, but then Hog flinched and he remembered Hog didn’t like no one touching his mask, didn’t take it off all the way for no reason.

 

“Sorry,” Rat said, and then, again, “Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry-”

 

“S’alright boss,” Hog said, and succeeded in finally wrapping Rat up in a blanket. He settled Junkrat back down in the sidecar, and stood next to it until Rat was able to let go. Junkrat didn’t remember Hog pulling away because Roadhog didn’t until Rat let himself go under.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theories? 
> 
> Also, I am picturing the Outback a lot like Mad Max so there is a distinct lack of readily available lady role models, and those that are aren't 'traditional' ladies so a little junkrat never gave 'em much thought besides going to take my stuff or not going to take my stuff.
> 
> He never really thought of his auto default of dude for everyone until later on and by then it is ingrained. also he is gay af so his default is dude which i hope was conveyed here a bit


	7. Bittersweet and sticky

Roadhog and Junkrat were sent off a few days after the other two. The monkey and the doc were worried about some weird activity on the east coast of Australia. And, since the omnium was near where these odd events were going down, Roadhog and Rat were picked. Hog doubted there was anything of value left in the pile of scrap metal, but he had been wrong before and Rat had found something. But roving gangs of heavily armored men didn’t seem all that strange in their former home. The thing that was worrying Mercy and Winston was that the men and women had been seen in contact with suspected Talon agents. There was also an off shore mine that these gangs took control of.

 

“Even if they are just using it to make ammunition, we cannot allow this to continue,” Mercy had said. “The coast has made great improvements in the last couple of years. There are many civilians there. You leave immediately.”

 

Their destination was a night’s ride away after a long ass jet ride. Roadhog had brought his bike since it was used to the rough terrain. They stopped for a bit around midnight for Roadhog to sleep. Jetlag let him drift off fast enough, and Rat was keeping watch. Jetlag also ensured that Rat was mostly quiet for Hog’s nap. They hit their destination a little after sunrise.

 

“Place seems familiar,” Rat commented. Hog gave it another look.

 

“Never been.”

 

“Think I came here before,” Rat said, and glared at the surroundings. “Or… maybe not. I dunno.”

 

“Doesn’t matter, we ain’t staying long,” Roadhog replied. Rat made a noise, and let it drop. Hog expertly guided the bike over to the small solar pump. He topped off the batteries. He still hadn’t figured out where to best put panels on the bike itself, but he would in time.

 

“Can we get snacks, Hog?” Rat asked. Hog grunted, and pulled some bills from a pocket (he kept hold of their travel money). Rat snatched it up, and took a couple of hurried steps to the little store before halting. “You want anything?”

 

Hog shook his head, and Rat took off. Roadhog looked the seaside town over in a critical manner. He and Rat had been gone from the Outback for a few years, but it seemed like there was some sort of organization here that had been missing before. The store they had stopped at had actual unbroken windows for one. There were some kids playing with a patched soccer ball on the street. A couple of old men were lazing about smoking rolled cigarettes and drinking beer. They weren’t, however, ready to pop into action at a moment’s notice. Roadhog couldn’t see any weapons on them.

 

He finished filling the bike, and wandered over to the kids. They look up at him with wide eyes, and a small woman he hadn’t seen before paused in sweeping her porch. Her eyes were sharp and cutting as the sun’s rays which actually pierced the radiation clouds now and then. “Got a treat if you answer some questions for me,” he huffed, and crouched.

 

The kids eyed each other before a freckled nut brown girl stepped forwards. “Whatta you want?”

 

“There a mine near here?”

 

“Yeah, the ol’ whale. Everyone knows that dumby. S’that way. Least, that is how me uncles got out to it to work,” she said, and pointed. He followed her dusty finger to where it was pointing to an equally dusty looking dock in the distance. Beyond it, not horribly far, out to sea was a lumbering metal monster rising from the waves. All was dark on it at the moment. “It’s all closed up though.”

 

“Why’s that?”

 

“Me da was working there till a few months ago. Got kicked out by some guys with guns,” a little boy added. His eyes were glowing faintly. A nice side effect of the radiation maybe.

 

“Junkers?”

 

“Whosers? Nah, was the Pack took it. Da was mad. Said just cuz they protects us don’t mean they should get to take everything. Ma told him hush.”

 

“Me ma said the alpha ain’t nothing but a bully,” the first girl said.

 

“No, your ma said he does good,” a second girl said.

 

“My other ma stupid,” the first said, before giving Hog a scathing look. “So, what we gettin’ for answer your questions?”

 

“Got one more. You know me?”

 

“Pfft, as if. And you better not hold out on us mate. Me Mas got shotguns big as your arm,” the girl said, and put her hands on her hips. Hog chuckled, and pulled out a roll of stickers. He ripped off a span of them, and handed it over.

 

“Oooh, piggies!” the kids said, efficiently forgetting him. He stood, and put the stickers back into his pocket. He was glad he had forgotten to take them out when Rat had forced them on him. He looked at the woman again. She was still glaring his way. He approached her, but with more caution than he had the children. They stared each other down for a bit until she cracked.

 

“Whatcha doing back here?” she asked.

 

“You know me then.”

 

“I know of you as well as the rest of us did. Heard you took off. Greener pastures.”

 

“Who runs this Pack? What happened to the Junkers?”

 

“He’s a junker. Was a junker. Killed the others, or they joined up with him. His watchdogs,” she looked around nervously. “They are everywhere, keeping the peace.”

 

“Right,” Hog huffed.

 

“Any junker left ran deep into the Outback. Kinda fell to shit when you left.”

 

“‘Doubt me leaving had much to do with it. Timin’ probably.”

 

“Maybe. But you wasn’t ever a grabber like them. Kept the others in line.”

 

“Tell me a bit ‘bout this Pack.”

 

She shrugged a shoulder, and spat. Hog wasn’t interested in hearing more about himself, and what he left behind by becoming a bodyguard. Being an enforcer for the Fist had had its benifits, and had kept the Junkers in line. But the Fist hadn’t givin’ him enough, and Rat had opened up more profitable alleyways.

 

“Like I said, they came in lil’ after everyone found out big ol’ hog had jumped ship. Weren’t no one to smack ‘em back down.”

 

“There was Fist.”

 

She snorted. “Think we both know that old cunt was good for pissin’ dust an nothing more.”

 

Hog gave the woman a harder look. She stared him down this time, and it was him that turned away. “You were one of his.”

 

“Shut your filthy fucking mouth. I ain’t no ones,” she snarled. He looked back at her, his hand on his gun. She scowled at him. “Doesn’t matter. He’s dead an’ gone. The Pack keeps the peace, even if they take an arm an’ a leg before givin’ a bullet when needed.”

 

“You wouldn’t be sorry to see them go.”

 

“There are two people in this world I would be sorry about losin’. Neither run with the Pack, pig.”

 

“How someone get out to that mine,” he said, and jerked his head that way. She shrugged again.

 

“Swim.”

 

He grunted in acknowledgement, and took his leave of her. True enough she didn’t seem sad about him going. Junkrat was, surprisingly, waiting for him by the bike even if he was rocking on his feet from the effort of keeping still. He shoved a cloth parcel into his big hands. “Got you some taffy mate. Man makes it himself. Wouldn’t bite too hard though. Don’t think he knows what washin’ hands means. Probably bit gritty,” Rat said, and cackled. Hog huffed a laugh, but tossed it back.

 

“Get in the bike Rat,” he said, and hefted himself over the driver’s seat. The motorcycle gave a pleasant groan at his weight, but made no overt protest.

 

“Where we going now?”

 

Roadhog pointed out at the metal monster. Rat paled.

 

“Nah mate, not there.”

 

“That’s the mine.”

 

“Let’s go to the omnium first. Check that out,” Rat said. He hadn’t gotten in the sidecar. Hog pointed at it. Rat took a step back. “Fuck you.”

 

“Get in,” Hog said.

 

“Say we ain’t going out on the ocean.”

 

“Get. In.”

 

“Say we ain’t going!” Rat shouted. Hog frowned and narrowed his eyes behind his mask. He tilted his head a little. There was the sharp, bitter taste of fear behind Rat’s anger. Roadhog rolled his shoulders a little, and glared out at the mine. His gut told him that was the way to go, the quickest route back out of this fuck-all hole. But his gut also rolled at the thought of making Rat go out on the water when it made his boss all jittery like that.

 

“We go to the omnium first, and then no arguing about checkin’ out that mine?” he asked.

 

Rat shivered in place, and opened and closed his mouth a few times. His eyes darted around and around to the mines and out into the desert where the omnium was waiting.

 

“Yeah. Okay. Yeah. No fighting.”

 

“Promise.”

 

“...Promise,” Rat ground out. He looked like Hog had spat in his mouth, and told him to swallow it. Rat scowled and got into the sidecar. He crossed his arms, and pouted. Annoyed, Roadhog gunned it to throw him back against the seat.

 

Eventually though he let the lull of the engine, and the endlessness of the sand lull him. He reached over, and messed up Rat’s crazy hair. “Give me some of that taffy.” Rat swore at him, but a second later a sticky piece of candy was shoved into his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fucker did not want to get written let me tell you. And since it was being difficult i didn't proofread.
> 
> Shoot me some song suggestions over on my tumblr because as much as I have been spamming some songs they ain't giving me the feel I am trying to get for the next bits.


	8. Leftovers

“This is the omnium?” Roadhog asked. He hadn’t been there before. He hadn’t been one of the ones that made the core fail. If he had been he wouldn’t be here now

 

“Yessir,” Junkrat said from the sidecar. He had his feet up in the way Hog told him not to. Hog ignored it for now. The thing looked like half caved in, half melted shit. “Home sweet home.”

 

“You grew up in there, didn’t you.”

 

“More or less,” Junkrat said. He didn’t seemed worried at the moment. Hog urged the vehicle on. The place did look really shitty.

 

Hog remembered pictures of it when it had first finished being built, back when he was young and not Roadhog. The man he used to be was happy about it because his Mother’s solar farm had signed a deal to provide a majority of their harvest to the powering of the plant. For the first time in years they weren’t struggling, and she had enough to eat. Those memories were fuzzy, but the remembered smell of an apple pie being baked by her were sharp. It was the first he had ever had.

 

Later on the pictures showed the plant taking on life of its own, and producing omnics with no one to oversee it. Then, once more, turned off, but handed over to the omnics like the rest of the Outback. He had joined the Australian Liberation Front shortly after those had been published.

 

The building used to be composed of three huge structures. The smallest had been for the public, and contained the workers’ quarters. It had been in front of two rectangular warehouse like buildings. It had had huge, scaling windows on the reception building, whereas the other two were closed off tight. The company that built it had spent a pretty penny on making sure it had had green trees and grass on its grounds at all times in an affront to the Outback’s natural way.

 

Now the reception building was caved in, and slinking forwards. It looked, almost, like it was puking its guts out. There was a melted metal river that, while certainly not intentional, provided a pretty decent ramp for Roadhog.

 

“Goes down a bit into the ground, it does. Couple of floors. Ten or twelve,” Junkrat said. He was sitting right in the sidecar now, upright and alert. Hog still didn’t get a taste of anything bad off of him, so he flicked on the lights and kept going. “Some of the clingers used to sleep out here. Not closed up enough to be comfortable at night.” Sure enough the building was mostly open to the elements. Junkrat pointed. “That way mate.”

 

“Right,” Hog replied. “There anything here?”

 

“Dunno. I found my thing by chance. Probably not. Hopefully no one is home,” he said, and giggled nervously. But it was a normal amount of nervousness for Rat. Hog went through the hole in the back of the room. It opened to a bigger room. It looked like it used to be a cafeteria if a charred hole off to one side was a kitchen. There almost looked like the remnants of a fridge inside.

 

Roadhog was abruptly glad he hadn’t gotten picked to go mess with the core even if, at the time, he had been furious. The omnics had taken as much from him as anyone. He it had been his right to get revenge too. But this wasn’t revenge. This was melted metal, and ash. This had been Junkrat’s playground growing up.

 

Hog slowed the bike to a halt. His own childhood home, or the man he used to be’s, had been in New Zealand before his parents split. Then he and his mum had come out here to solar farm.

 

“Something up mate?” Rat whispered.

 

“We are going to have to hoof it. Don’t trust those floors.”

 

“Probably a good idea. Probably good idea to follow me Roady,” Rat said, and jumped out of the sidecar. He deposited his Riptire in it. “Won’t do me much good in there,” he said, but did grab his homemade grenade launcher and several other smaller explosives. Hog grunted, and killed the engine. The two of them pulled out torches. Hog’s was a nice heavy duty thing, and Rat’s a little probably American made one. Hog called it a flashlight a lot to piss Rat off.

 

Junkrat made his way through the debris, and Hog followed. Every now and then Rat would stop, and prod at the ground with his metal leg. Sometimes he would shrug, and continue on. Sometimes they would backtrack, and find a different route.

 

“Used that one for ages, but ain’t surprise it ain’t no good no more,” Rat said after they had to go around through an entirely different room in the workers’ quarters. “Watch out, we used these as shitters. Don’t know how long that shit lasts. Hehe, get it? Shit.”

 

“You just stepped in some,” Hog said, and Rat jumped. He looked at his foot and peg, and then scowled at Hog.

 

“Fucker,” he said, and Hog chuckled. “Come on, this way. Ass.”

 

The inside of the left warehouse was just as destroyed as everything else, but in a different way. There were clear signs of recent inhabitants having been guided out in a hurry. Shit was knocked over, but some decent looking loot still in place.  There was some relatively new dried blood on the ground. Rat hummed, and scurried ahead. Roadhog held back, and gave the place a look, a good long one.

 

The open floor plan was sectioned off with walls made of anything from driftwood to rusted sheet metal. Each ‘room’ had its own set of shit in it be it loot, a bed, or traps to keep others out. There was a second ‘floor’ made of hammocks. They ranged from natty netting to tarps. One seemed to be an old Australian Liberation Front flag. Dirty, radiation green bars of light only fell in at odd intervals. They were barely enough to let someone see right in front of them.

 

Realizing Rat had left him behind he set out to follow him. He peeked into the ‘rooms’ as he passed: trash, twisted metal, nudie mags, ammunition.

 

“Over here Hog,” Rat said. Roadhog swung his torch around, and Rat squinted in its light before his head disappeared back into a fold of melted metal. Hog headed for it. It was where the floor seemed to have folded like wet paper, and left a little hollow. Rat was just slim enough to fit through it.

 

Hog knelt, and looked in. It widened enough that Rat could sit up (though he had to duck a little). “Nice right, Roady? My own little beach house. Made it all meself!” Rat said, and cackled. Hog passed his light over it. “Everything is still here!” There were some glow in the dark star stickers stuck above Rat’s head. They didn’t glow. There was a chewed tarp, and a cement bag that had rags stuck inside it (a pillow?). Several shoes of different sizes (all of which were slightly too big to Junkrat as he was now). There were a few odd bits and bobs tangled up in the sheet. “Didn’t have a chance to grab anything after I found the ‘big thing’. Went straight to you I did. Smart of me huh? Look!” Rat shoved an object back up to him, and Hog took it.

 

“A clock.”

 

“Yeah! I fixed it myself. Took me a couple o’ months, but got it ticking again. Kinda,” Rat laughed. He shuffled around in the tarp while Hog sat staring at the rough looking clock in his hand. It was ticking, but in an uneven pattern. It was useless to tell time.

 

“S’good work,” Hog said.

 

“Oh, oh, and this!” Rat snatched the clock back, and tossed it aside. He shoved another thing at Hog. Roadhog took it, and looked it over. It was a wrench set: one of those several attached to each other, and you spun out the one you needed. “Stole that from the guy who was in charge here, Meandog. He wasn’t here most the time, traveled a lot. I broke into his room, and took it. I hid it so good he never found it!” Rat said, beaming, and took the wrench set back. He slipped it into a pocket in a reverent manner. “Can’t believe everything is still here. Wonder if… Let me see. Hold me light,” Rat said, and passed it.

 

Hog held the light for him, and Rat dug through the tarp again. There was a muffled yelp, and a family of rats went running. Eventually he shot up, victorious, to smack his head against the top of the hollow.

 

“Oh, ow, don’t fit quite like I used to. Here Roady, check it out, some real gold I found! Couple o’ other Junkers were bragging they found a whole vein of it, and picked it dry. They didn’t even know I was eavesdropping!” He tossed a shiny rock up, and Hog caught it. Junkrat fell back, cackling like the madman he was, and curled up in the tarp.

 

Roadhog looked down at the gold in his hand. Any fool could see it was pyrite.

 

“Come on out of there boss,” Hog said after a minute. He held a hand out to the smaller man. Junkrat was looking up at him, a huge smile on his face, and holding his cement bag pillow to his chest.

 

“Nice yeah? You want it? Take it. I want you to have it. Never showed no one this. I think. Actually there might’ve been… Nevermind,” he said, and laughed nervously. He looked around at the little shit hole, and Hog wanted to shake him. This wasn’t where a kid should-

 

“S’real nice, boss,” Hog said. A smile broke back out on Junkrat’s face. “But come outta there. We got work.”

 

“Yeah, okay,” Junkrat said, and took Roadhog’s hand. Hog pulled him out with hardly an effort, and couldn’t for the life of him imagine that Junkrat had ever been smaller, been lighter, been skinnier than he was now. “Thanks Roady. Oh no, I was serious. Keep that.”

 

Hog looked once more at the pyrite in his hand. He closed it into a fist, and then put it in a pocket. “Thanks boss.”

 

“Consider it a tip big guy. Come on, we got a job or not?” Rat asked, and took his puny fucking flashlight. Hog’s hand clenched and unclenched, and he looked around the place again.

 

“I’m going to check out up there,” he said. He wanted a look at this Meandog’s room. The name seemed familiar to him the more he let it sit on his mind.

 

Rat was suddenly at his arm, and holding tight.

 

“You can’t,” he said, eyes wide.

 

“What? Why?”

 

“That’s Meandog’s room. Ain’t no one goes in there.”

 

“You did.”

 

“Yeah, and he shot a couple of blokes for it. Ain’t even ones who did nothing. Couple o’ guys that just hung around and fixed junk. They were just the closest when he got back.”

 

“Junkrat, there is no one here.”

 

“ _ You can’t _ ,” Rat said, and dug his fingers into the meat of Roadhog’s arm. Hog glared at the warped stairs that led up to the door to the room. He wanted to go up there. His gut was telling him to.

 

“Okay boss,” he said, finally, and turned away.

 

“Good. Good,” Junkrat said. He tugged Hog along a few more steps. “Besides, anything worth anything here will be downstairs right? Where I found the thing. Let’s go down there, yeah?”

 

“Yeah, okay,” Roadhog said. Rat hummed, pleased, but kept his hands on Hog until they were in the stairwell leading down.

 

They split up to search rooms from there. There wasn’t much to find, but more rats and junk. Not even Junker junk, junk so junk that Junkers wouldn’t even be bothered with it. And all Hog could think about was that Junkrat, Jamison Fawkes, had grown up here. He had found a little shit hole in this bigger shit hole, and grew up here. No wonder he was so small and skinny. He was a fucking weed growing in a choking crack in a fucking dead field out of the ribcage of some dead fucking animal surrounded by bigger meaner weeds. It was leaving a sick fucking taste in his mouth.

 

Roadhog accidently ripped a cabinet door off its hinges. He frowned at the lumpy metal, and dropped it on the floor.

 

A gunshot rang out at the same time, and made him jump. He whipped around, his torch searching for Rat, his eyes seeking the light of Rat’s flashlight.

 

When he found neither he fucking  _ ran. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was making me choke up.
> 
> Listened to Hollow Moon (Bad Wolf) by Awolnation while writing it, and thinking about Amethyst from Steven Universe of all things.
> 
> Thanks everyone for the song suggestions! Keep 'em coming!
> 
> Also, Roadhog's wiki suggests he is of Moari descent which I am just going to go with if anyone is wondering about where that came from. AND if no one knows, pre-game Junkrat found something in the omnium that led him to hiring Roadhog as his bodyguard. That isn't something I made up, and I have absolutely no idea what it would be so I just keep calling it the thing.


	9. Rotten

 

Junkrat fell to a knee on his fully human leg. His hand clutched his side that was slick with blood.

 

He had been shot? He had been shot. It hurt.

 

“You,” the omnic before him said. Junkrat couldn’t breath.

 

“Me?” he squeaked. His head was swimming. This all seemed really familiar. He didn’t like it.

 

“You ruined everything! And you are going to do it again! No. I won’t let it happen,” the robotic being said, and came forwards. Rat’s area of sight was filled with the scratched, scraped, dented faceplate of the omnic. He knew this omnic. The deep cut below one of its broken motion sensor eyes was on the opposite side he remembered, and was similar to the one in London that had sent him running.

 

It set its gun against his head.

 

“I know you,” he said, stupidly. He knew this omnic.

 

His heart was pounding, and he closed his eyes. He felt too hot.

 

“You’re too hot mate. Been like this for days,” Jamie’s friend said. They were both of them huddled down in Jamie’s little hole.

 

“I’ll get better,” Jamie aid, coughing hard. His friend pursed his lips, and set a cool (for the Outback) cloth on Jamie’s head.

 

“We gotta do something about this mate. S’not good.”

 

“Snot,” Jamie agreed, rubbing his nose. His friend laughed though quietly because the big guys out there didn’t like them being too loud. And they only survived by flying under the radar.

 

“”S’all my fault,” his friend said, mournfully, and took Jamie’s scrapped up hand in his. It was hot and pulsing and angry.

 

“Ow.”

 

“Ow,” his friend agreed, his lip trembling. “Should’ve known better. You got all busted up because of me.”

 

“Nah, sure it was me,” Jamie said. The other boy snorted.

 

“If I had been quicker you wouldn’t have gotten stepped on mate, and this wouldn’t be all sick.”

 

“Mm shut up. S’no worse than you’ve gotten,” Jamie said, smiling like a dope. He felt hot and floaty, and just a bit dizzy.

 

“Stay here mate. I’mma find something for this,” his friend promised, and Jamie tightened his hold as best he could with his bum hand.

 

“No no no, don’t go. We gotta stick together. Right? Right?” he asked, desperately.

 

“‘Course mate. I ain’t going far,” his friend said.

 

“Promise? Promise? Promise?”

 

“Cross me heart mate. Get some rest.”

 

Jamie opened his mouth to call the boy’s name. It was on the tip of his tongue. He opened his mouth, but it was a gunshot not a name.

 

Rat fell back even as the omnic was sent to the ground with a furious Roadhog on top of it. The side of Rat’s face was warm from where the bullet grazed him. Junkrat scrambled to his feet even as his side absolutely fucking screamed in agony. Jamie was running, running to his hole where it was safe from the big guys. He needed to get there before that boy left, and the bad thing happened. He had to hurry.  _ We’ll stick together.  _ It bounced around in his head till it was screaming, and his ears were ringing, and his eyes were crying. They had to stick together, and Jamie didn’t know where he was.

 

“Found us a solution mate,” the boy said, running besides Jamie, but he wasn’t actually there, was he? Jamie stumbled, and fell, hard, against a wall. “Shouldn’t be up mate, with that.”

 

“No, we should stay,” Jamie said.

 

“You’re gettin’ worse Jamison, not better. This guy will know how to fix it. He even said he had work for us, and would feed us. We wouldn’t have to live in no hole anymore.”

 

“He lyin then. Ain’t no one give out handouts. He wants something. You remember Long Fingers,” Jamie said, and they both shuddered at the thought of the man with roaming hands. If you closed your eyes, and were desperate enough, he’d take what he want. Most the time he would give you something after. Jamie hadn’t ever gotten that desperate, but he heard stories.

 

“This isn’t like that mate. This guy he… he uh…he ain’t like us. He’s one of them there omnics.”

 

“You made a deal with a bot?” Jamie demanded, and stumbled away from the wall. They just had to get back to their hidy-hole, and everything would be okay. The boy propped himself under Jamie’s arm to support him.

 

They both slipped a few times on the stairs, but made it up in relatively one piece.

 

“Your dyin’ Jamie. You’re going to leave me.”

 

“Nah I’m not, mate,” Jamie said weakly. “We’ll stick together. Promise.”

 

“Then let's go get help from this guy. It could make things better. Jamie, please, please.” Jamie didn’t respond. He settled on the tarp and clutched his unresponsive burning cold hand to his angry searing side. “I mean what could happen if we go together? Jamie, please. We’ll go together. We’ll go together and it will be fine. Jamie?”

 

Jamie worried his lip, and looked at his friend, and opened his mouth with a croak. His mind was screaming NO NO NO not to do it because it was the wax seal on his friend’s fate, and it was all Jamie’s fault because he hadn’t been fast enough, hadn’t moved at the right moment, hadn’t gotten  _ better- _

 

“We’ll stick together,” he finally said in the dark, and his friend beamed like the sun.

 

The place was lit up with his smile, baking the sand leading up to the small half buried building. “Here we are Jamison. He’ll fix you right up, and we will have jobs, and never ever be hungry again,” his friend promised. Jamie didn’t say anything. He hadn’t felt hungry for a couple of days now, and he was constantly cold.

 

They entered the building, and were met with the dented, scratched faceplate of the omnic that shot him. But, no, the omnic hadn’t shot him? He had put them both in a small room, and said to wait there. After a while he took the other boy out to ask him some questions, and left Jamie alone in the small room. Jamie was so cold without his friend there, and everything hurt. Why hadn’t the omnic done what he promised? Everything hurt, and when he looked at his hand it was skeletal and covered in blood. But that wasn’t right. It was supposed to be swollen, and have bent fingers, and smell bad, and be a bit green.

 

Jamie was confused, and it was dark now, and he didn’t know where his friend was. He made himself get up off the low bed, and stumble out of the room. “Where is-”

 

“You shouldn’t be up,” the omnic said, and Jamie squinted at him. Everything was a bit fuzzy. “He’s gone on ahead. You have to stay till you are better.”

 

“No, no that ain’t right. We stick together. I gotta go with him.”

 

“No, you need to rest,” the omnic said, and drew closer. Jamie jerked back, and fell against a couple of compressed canisters. Some part of his head identified them as things that made rather big booms.

 

“No, I’ve gotta go after him! Take me to him!”

 

“No,” the omnic said, and crossed the distance between them. He grabbed Jamie by the bright throbbing of his hand, and Jamie howled in pain. “You ain’t going after him. Your broken, and worthless, and going to die. You are a waste of resources. Me boss don’t want you.”

 

“Let go! Let me go with him!” Jamie screamed, and he was so, so small, and he jerked away. He pushed the omnic away from him, and scrambled back into the canisters again. The omnic backpedaled a step or two. Jamie threw a canister at him. It broke, and splashed foul smelling liquid on the both of them. Most of it gone on the omnic though.

 

“Just go lie back down, and die like a good boy. Ain’t no saving you now, and he ain’t going to be alive soon anyways,” the omnic said. Jamie froze, and stared at him.

 

“What did you do?”

 

“I didn’t do anything. I just collect ‘em. Got my own to take care of kid. Don’t like it, but it’s the way it is. The kid he is going to die. Your friend is already gone,” the omnic said. There was something like pity in his voice.

 

Jamie screamed. He screamed and screamed, and reached in his pocket for a flare for when he and the other boy went into dark ruins and their torches died. He threw it at the omnic, who burst into flames with a surprised shout. Jamie’s own arm, his hurt one, got even more hurt with some of the liquid catching fire on it. He screamed, and beat it out.

 

Jamie threw more canisters at the omnic. Not all of them burst open. The one that didn’t break open, after minute or so of heating, started to explode. It caught Junkrat along his bad arm, and must have stabbed him into his side because that hurt too. The omnic was still screaming, but Jamie didn’t care. He grabbed everything and anything, and threw it on the flames.

 

Some part of him was sane enough to drive him from the building. It was bitterly cold from the night. He didn’t remember what he threw on it to make it blow with enough force to rock the ground, but he must have found something. The shockwave threw him to the ground. Fire and debris roared into the air, and Jamie roared with it.

 

They were supposed to stick together, and now he was alone. His friend was gone. He was probably already dead.

 

Jamie should go after him!

 

He scrambled to his feet, and took a few shuddering steps in the first direction he turned to before he collapsed in the sand. He was tired, and cold, and weak.

 

He lay there forever, and when he woke a dark face was looking down at him. The man spoke in a weird language, one of the original Junkers maybe, Aboriginals some Junkers called ‘em. Jamie threw his arms out to protect himself. One was gone up to the elbow. He stared at it, and started crying all over again. The man touched his head, gently.

 

“Boss,” the man said, but it wasn’t his voice. It was a different one, and Jamie looked at him again. “Boss, I can’t reach you down there. Grab my hand.”

 

“I left him,” Jamie said, miserably.

 

“Give me your hand Junkrat.”

 

“Junkrat?” Jamie breathed, and blinked, and everything was dark again except for the light reflecting off of Roadhog’s mask. He squinted up at him. “Roadhog?”

 

“Come on Junkrat, give me your hand,” the big man said, sounding strained and furious and worried. The way he snapped the order got Junkrat moving more than anything else. Roadhog was his bodyguard. If he was giving orders it was for Junkrat’s own good.

 

Junkrat gasped, and let out a choked sob when Hog pulled him from his hollow. His side was on fire.

 

“Fuck,” Hog whispered, and settled Rat down on the ground. He kept him flat even as Rat tried to curl in on himself.

 

He howled when Hog pushed a thick finger into the bullet hole. After endless agony Junkrat heard the gentle clink of a bloodied bullet being dropped on the floor somewhere besides Roadhog.

 

“S’gunna be okay boss. Keep talking to me Rat,” Roadhog said, and Junkrat realized he was babbling. He stopped, which caused Roadhog to whip in his direction even as his hand covered the hole to slow the bleeding. “What did I just say?”

 

“Don’t make a deal with the omnic,” Jamie, Junkrat, sobbed, and clutched at Hog. “Don’t go don’t go Hog don’t leave me Roady please please can’t lose you too can’t let it be my fault please please. Roadhog please!”

 

“I got you boss,” Roadhog assured, and reached into Junkrat’s pocket. He found one of the many lighters. “Hold on boss. This ain’t going to be nice. Hold on,” Hog muttered while holding the open flame to his metal hook. Jamierat didn’t understand until the heated metal was put to his skin.

 

He screamed despite the fact it was closing him up, and keeping his blood in the right spot.

 

The screaming died down to choked sobbing. His eyes were all blurry with tears, and he couldn’t breath his nose was running so much snot. Hog’s hands were shaking. “You with me boss?”

 

“Hurts,” Junkfawkes croaked out. Hog grunted, and ran a hand through Junkrat’s hair. Jamie whined.

 

“I’ll make it better boss. Hold still,” Hog said, and pulled out one of his yellow filters. His huge hand tightened in Rat’s hair, held him tight and still.

 

Hog smashed the filter into place on his mask, and took a deep shaking breathe. He held it. With his free hand he reached up, and lifted his mask just enough. The hand came to hold Junkrat’s face, and wipe away some of Jamie’s tears.

 

Hog pressed his mouth to Rat’s, and breathed for three of them. Jamie choked on the burning, foul air and tried to cough it out, but Hog’s mouth was gone and his hand was there holding Junkrat’s mouth closed and pinching his nose shut. He was making him keep the foul, healing gases in his throat and lungs.

 

Jamie slapped at Hog with his human hand, and Rat slapped at him with the mechanical one even as his head was going dizzy and his side was burning like it was sealing itself with more burning metal. He withered and fought and tried to scream at Hog to let him go or hold him closer just so long as he wasn’t left alone again and Hog didn’t make no deals with no omnics.

 

Everything hurt, and everything was getting dark, and Hog’s mouth was a grim line above him. “Let it do its’ job boss. Let it do its job,” Hog said, and it was far away because he still wasn’t letting Rat breath until suddenly he was, and everything was clear and sharp and painful again.

 

“Don’t go,” Junkrat rasped out. He was reaching for Hog, weakly, and Hog took his hands in one of his. The other was still in Junkrat’s hair, holding him still and in place, and keeping him right were he was.

 

“Ain’t going anywhere boss. Sticking with you,” he promised, and both Junkrat and Jamie burst into tears again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that happened


	10. Slowcooker

Roadhog carried the sleeping Junkrat over to a hammock. He dumped the shit out of it impatiently, and then, ever so carefully, settled Rat into it. His big fingers pressed against Rat’s thin throat, and found the fluttering, weak, pump of his pulse. He looked like shit warmed over, and fuck if that didn’t get Roadhog’s own blood boiling. He had one job, one fucking job, and he nearly fucking blew it.

 

Roadhog pulled out his canteen, and wetted a rag. He carefully cleaned away the blood off of Rat. There was an ugly, puckered red hole on Rat’s side, across from his navel. It was going to scar horribly. But Rat was going to live. Hog had gotten the bullet out, and his healing inhaler would make sure it sealed up nice and proper.

 

Hog shifted his mask so it sat more comfortably. He had had bad lungs since he was a kid, and had needed a mask since he could walk. His mother, Mako’s mother that was, had made the healing inhalers for him to cut off an attack. She had taught him how to make them. It had only taken a bit of tweaking to make them more potent, and able to heal most flesh wounds. A shot like Rat’s on Hog would hardly slow him.

 

But Rat wasn’t Hog. He was small, and not as strong, and so fucking skinny.

 

Hog very carefully sat Rat up, and wrapped the cleanest cloth he had found around his abdomen. He had proper bandages back at the bike, but he wasn’t prepared to leave Rat any time soon.

 

He settled his boss back down on the hammock, and found a blanket. He tucked it around Rat’s shoulders. He carded his fingers through Rat’s nappy, gross hair.

 

He had an omnic to integrate, but Hog knew it wasn’t going anywhere.

 

Hog stood over Junkrat for a long time. He kept his hand tangled in his hair, and the other cupping Rat’s jaw. His thumb rested on his pulse just so he could feel it just so he could be sure because Rat was so so pale beneath the tear streaks in his almost permanent level of soot.

 

Eventually Rat’s breathing evened out, and tears stopped leaking from beneath his lids. Hog gently wiped the mess off of his face. He was so very careful with his too big hands, and his too rough touch.

 

Hog stepped back, and gave the place a hard look. He listened hard too. All he heard was the wind, and the scuttling of rats. He humphed, and turned. He had a job to do.

 

The omnic was where he left it, broken, a few floors down. Its broken limbs were still popping, and sparking erratically. He shifted upon his reappearance. Hog grabbed a nearby chair, spun it, and sat backwards on it. The wood groaned under him. He stared the omnic before him down.

 

“Well, finish it then,” it hissed.

 

“Who you working for?” he asked. If it had been human he would be cleaning his fingernails with a knife right now, but such idle threats wouldn’t work here. Pain was felt different by omnics, but it didn’t mean they couldn’t feel it. They had receptors in their metal craniums that registered it. If someone could unscrew the backplate, or rip it open, they could fiddle with that little dial. They could make the movement of air being painful. Hog knew this, and more, about omnics. It was what the Australian Liberation Front had taught him.

 

The lights on the things skull light up and blinked a few times. “I know who you are,” it said, a tad uneasy. “All omnics here do. Wouldn’t be surprised if some other places did too. We upload all we know about you, and share it. You and others.”

 

‘You know what I can do then,” Hog said,

 

“Yes,” it replied. It shifted, and more sparks shot across the ground. “I work for Meandog. He is now leader of the Pack. I will tell you everything, if you kill me after.”

 

“Was going to do it anyway. Don’t want you thinking I am doing you favors.”

 

“I’ve got those that I care about,” the omnic said, sounding miserable. “I don’t even know if they are alive.”

 

“Bullshit. Ommies can’t care about shit.”

 

“Oh? And you know so much about caring about something?” It tilted its head. “Mako Rutledge.”

 

“Best be laying off that if I was you. I can make you hurt.”

 

“Member of the Australian Liberation Front, former Enforcer to the Fist. Current member of Overwatch, as well as the bodyguard to Jamison “Junkrat” Fawkes. Son to Aroha Rutledge: deceased.”

 

“Shut it,” Hog snarled. His hands tightened. The omnic followed the gesture.

 

“Touch a sore spot?”

 

“I am the one asking questions here,” Hog said. He sought the dark part in himself, the place Roadhog was born in, and pulled it forwards. He found calm in it, a scary sort of calm that left him still, and quiet, and dangerous.

 

“She was killed by omnics, wasn’t she? Your mother. She turned off the solar panels, and they went while you were gone, and-”

 

“Enough,” Hog said. The omnics stilled, and quieted. It watched as Hog stood, and approached.

 

Calmly Hog ripped out the back panel, and found the right wires to the right dials. He turned it up five more clicks than it was before. He stepped back and looked down. “Who is Meandog?”

 

“An enforcer like you were. Only he didn’t leave. He killed the Fist, and made things better by making them worse.”

 

“What do you do for him?”

 

“What don’t I do for him?” the omnic said, bitterly. Hog pressed the sharp tip of his boots onto one of the shattered limbs. It let out a number of high pitched beeps and squeals until he let up. “Was a recruiter, originally,” it said, seeming out of breath. Hog hated that, hated how they were made to be so like people when they weren’t. “Searched for strong kids, brought them to Meandog.”

 

“What he do with ‘em after?”

 

“Don’t know. Didn’t ask. Didn’t want to know. Changed ‘em. Made them… made them like him,” the omnic said.

 

“What is Meandog doing?”

 

“He is working with Talon. Dunno why, dunno the end game. He was the one that organized the Pack to take over the coast. He don’t give a shit about anyone out here. He bombed several places, only to sweep in like a hero. Used omnics as the attackers. Wants the citizen’s loyalty. He’s got one of his betas out in the ocean keeping an eye on things. The boy’s got enough firepower on that rig to blow the country up for a second time.”

 

“So you just thought defecting was a good idea?”

 

“I am tired of doing his dirty work. He has done nothing to assure my loyalty. I heard there was something here that could buy anyone anything.”

 

“Why did you do all that stuff for him then?”

 

“Why did you do as the Fist demanded?” the omnic countered. Hog growled. He had done it for booze and money and women and men and drugs. He had done it to fill the fucking hole that was Mako Rutledge in his chest. He’d done it because he had done everything the Australian Liberation Front had asked, and it hadn’t made a goddamned shit of difference. His home was still gone, and the Outback was fucking ruined. He’d done it all because he was the biggest dumbest motherfucker on the planet without a place to go and too much anger. But he doubted that any of that would be why this metal cunt did anything.

 

“He has my family,” it said, and Hog sneered.

 

“Omnics don’t have families.”

 

“We do. No one cares to ask. My brother made on the belt before me, and my sister just behind. We worked together for years, joked and laughed and cried together. No one cares about them, or me. And Meandog has them. He probably destroyed them long ago,” the omnic said. The lights in its sensors went out as if it was closing its eyes.

 

“Touching,” Hog huffed.

 

“You don’t have anyone you care about. You wouldn’t understand.”

 

Hog looked down on it. He stepped on the limb again until the screaming started to give him a headache. Then he lifted his foot away, and crouched down. “See, that is where you are wrong. That is where you fucked up. Because I do.”

 

Hog reached behind the omnic, and turned the dial up even farther. He turned it up until the knob broke off.

 

“And you shot him,” he said, and dug his hook into the center of the things empty fucking chest. His mask stared impassively at the screaming, suffering, writhing machine before him. His face, behind the mask, was equally impassive.

 

After it was done, after the hook had passed completely through the central core of the omnic, and it was dead Hog stood again. He left the shell of the thing in the dark, and went back up the stairs to where he had left Rat sleeping.

 

His boss was still out of it on the hammock. Hog went over to stand above him again. He had some color back. He was unsure how long he had been with the omnic. It felt like it had been a while.

 

Hog went back to the bike, and got some supplies off of it. He then found a nice little hiding place for it. He didn’t know how well his reputation had held up. Younger scavengers might not know what hell they’d be in if they touched the bike. He didn’t feel like hunting them down if they came across it, and were stupid enough to mess with it. Instead he ripped a few metal doors off their hinges, and used them to make a little cover for his bike.

 

He brought the supplies back to where Rat was. He set up a little fire, and started it. He started what would be there dinner, and set some water boiling. He knew Rat liked his tea, and he liked it sweet. He set a little bottle of honey to one side.

 

Hog looked up at what was once Meandog’s room. He looked at Rat, still asleep.

 

The room was marginally bigger than the rooms made of whatever was handy below. It must have been the overseer’s office. One of the walls might’ve had windows once, but they were covered with rusted sheets now. Probably blew out when the core detenated.

 

It had a decent amount of items left in it, but nothing worth anything. Meandog must’ve taken anything of note with him when he left, or it had been repurposed by someone else long ago. Hog set about shifting through everything. He found some correspondence between Meandog, and the Fist. It wasn’t anything important: just their contract. Roadhog had drawn up a similar one with the Fist when he had become an enforcer.

 

Meandog’s chosen form of pay was in omnics, omnic parts, children, and cash. Honestly, it wasn’t a non-standard contract. The Fist had had a man that had only been paid with virgins’ pubes, crocodile teeth, and cash. That had been a weird enforcer.

 

Roadhog thought about it, but he couldn’t remember Meandog. Not clearly, at least, but it didn’t surprise him all that much. After a year or two in the Fist’s service Hog had become the enforcer of the enforcers. Usually when he saw another enforcer it was to kill them. Roadhog had been good at his job. Good enough that no one had gotten sent after him when he renegaded to become Rat’s bodyguard.

 

Or maybe it was then that Meandog had made his move, and the Fist had enough on his hands to go chasing after Roadhog. An interesting thought, but not enough to make Roadhog consider it more than at passing. The timing didn’t matter all that much to him. What did matter was that one of Meandog’s agents had hurt Junkrat. That means that, even if indirectly, Meandog had hurt Rat.

 

Roadhog might not have been an enforcer for a while now, but it wasn’t something someone forgot how to do overnight. Wouldn’t take much effort to kill the guy when he found him. And he would find him.Meandog should know better than to fuck with another enforcer’s shit.

 

Satisfied that there was nothing of importance Roadhog pissed on what was once Meandog’s bed, and went back out to where Junkrat was. Night must be falling because it was getting chilly rather quickly.

 

Roadhog fished Junkrat out of the hammock, and settled them both down in front of the little fire he had made with abandoned furniture. He undid the bandages around Rat’s waist, and smeared some antibacterial gel Mercy had sent with them on the angry red hole that marked the wound. Then he wrapped him in clean bandages. Then he wrapped him up in the blanket again, and another that had been in his sidecar.

 

Then he wrapped him up in his arms, and held him tight. Wouldn’t do to have him wake up, and go thinking he was alone.

 

Roadhog sat in front of the fire with Junkrat wrapped up tight, and warm, and thought for a bit on his own past. Seemed Rat’s hung heavy on him all the time to the point his brain shut it all out. Only thing shutting Mako out was Roadhog himself. With Junkrat safe in his arms, and the warmth of the fire before him Roadhog wondered how painful Mako still was.

 

He wondered, for a minute, if he should reach out to touch the memories.

  
In the end he didn’t. Instead he reached for Junkrat’s hair, and tangled his fingers in it. Somewhere along the line it had become comforting for them both for him to do that. He leaned back against a nearby post, and let his eyes shut. He didn’t sleep, but he dozed. He would wake if anyone came in, or if Junkrat needed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was like a page and a half shorter 24 hours ago.
> 
> and what is proofreading AHAHAA
> 
> look if i can't do it for school what do you want from me. though feel free to point out anything super bad. Maybe one day i will go back over it.


	11. Lil' Snack

It took a couple of days for Junkrat to be in any shape to go anywhere again. They spent a lot of time tinkering with stuff found in the old omnium, and just resting up in general. It was punctuated with a call to the Overwatch base that was marked by static. Roadhog did the talking, explained what was going down, and their next move. Mercy took a look at Rat’s bullet wound, decided he would be serviceable in the field (not like he was going to leave Roadhog either way; wasn’t leaving no one again), and told them to be careful. Also told him not to get too wet when they headed out onto the ocean.

 

The bloody fucking ocean.

 

Junkrat tried not to think about it, but it seemed like he had lost all ability to not think about anything. Because of that he talked. He talked in a way he didn’t usually because it made sense and it was about himself. It wasn’t useless prattle to fill up the space, and prove he existed there. He had tried to explain to Roadhog, and it was his version of an apology for taking off in London and taking off there and all the fucked up things he had done in the last couple of weeks.

 

“Aboriginal cut me arm off. Told me I woulda died if I had kept it. Moped around for weeks after. Lost me mate, lost me arm. Stuck with the Aboriginal for a while, Dark Dingo he called himself. Well, I called him that cuz he was howlin’ mad and I couldn’t pronounce his Aboriginal name. He didn’t like company, but he didn’t send me off either. When I was ready he showed me how to make me first arm,” Junkrat said in a stream of consciousness while tinkering with his current arm. He had banged it around a bit too much, and it needed upkeep.

 

Hog didn’t say anything, but handed him the wrench set he had stole from Meandog a life ago.

 

“Me mate was always a better cook, even if I was always better at makin the fires. We both were decently shit at catching anything, but sometimes we pulled it off. Feral cats, koalas. Once got us a big ol’ kangaroo. One of them big ol’ changed ones with the tusks. Nearly killed me mate, gave him a nice set o’ scars on his back. We ate like kings, ate till we puked and then ate some damn more,” Junkrat said, quietly, staring at the fire Roadhog was making their dinner over. He wasn’t seeing that fire until Hog put a hand on his shoulder, and put a kebab in his real hand.

 

“He was funny, me mate,” Junkrat said. He stopped halfway in painting Roadhog’s nails for him. He had drawn a smile on his big thumbnail. “Not like me, but real funny. Not me annoying on and on. Could make anyone laugh. Made Meandog almost crack a smile one time when he was on a roll. Saved our skins with that one. And good, too, real good. A good mate, good person I guess. Not like me. Were a bunch of other kids that had gotten donations from relief efforts. Younger than us, on the coast, smaller weaker. Didn’t let me take their stuff. Pissed at him fer days I was,” Junkrat said. He smeared more paint over the dried smiling face. “Better person than me.”

 

“Jamie,” Roadhog said, and Junkrat looked at him.

 

“I’m… I’m here mate. Me, not him. Not sure… not sure if there’s much a difference.”

 

“You want there to be?”

 

Junkrat looked back down at Roadhog’s hand. He… he wasn’t sure. It was easier and harder when they was separate. “Dunno,” he said, honestly. “Who… who was you, before? If he still there?”

 

Roadhog didn’t talk until it was his turn to do Rat’s nails. “Yes. Much as I try to push him away, he’s still in here.”

 

“Who is he?” Junkrat asked, without thinking. Roadhog went still. “Sorry Roadie, I-”

 

“I ain’t like you, Junkrat, Jamison. I… I made me, on purpose. You were made.”

 

“Same difference, innit?”

 

“Makes a world of difference, mate. It's like,” Roadhog huffed, and thought for a bit. “I learned in school, or, he, who I was, learned in school long ago that the world was made by stars colliding and shit like that. But I also know it was made by something tearing lovers apart and letting the light in. World was made either way, but there is a difference, yeah?”

 

“Which made you?”

 

“Greed made me, mate, greed,” Roadhog said, quietly, and gave Rat his hand back. Rat looked at Jamie’s hand, but it was his own too. Hog had done a good job with their nails.

 

They were headed to the ocean the next day, to the metal monster out in the sea. Junkrat didn’t like it, didn’t want to go, but he had promised Roadhog he wouldn’t fight about it if they went to the omnium. Roadhog deserved for Rat to keep his word.

 

Still, he didn’t like it, and said as much as he climbed into the sidecar the next day. His side still hurt, but he was no longer weak and fainting. Roadhog’s inhaler shit worked good.

 

“You gunna be okay Junkrat?”

 

“Yeah Roadie. Let’s just… Let’s just go quick, and get it over with. Let’s blow the place sky high mate. Burn it under the water yeah?” Junkrat asked, bouncing a bit. He had made some nice additions to his set while they were spending time down. He couldn’t wait to use ‘em. 

 

Roadhog didn’t drive all out like he usually did. It was more subdued even if they did make good time. They hit the town they had been at days ago, where Rat had bought him taffy, and there they bought a boat.

 

Wasn’t a good boat which is why they bought it. Rat could fix the engine, and Hog would fix the body. That is what they did for the rest of the day.

 

“You know how to drive one of these things?” Rat asked. He was looking out at the ocean with distaste.

 

“I do.”

 

“Bullshit. Where you learn to do that?” he demanded, and spat at the green tinged sea.

 

“Guy I was before learned from his mother,” Hog said. Junkrat felt more questions crawling up the back of this throat. He bit them down.

 

“Yeah, okay, but this engine is shit. I can just add a little nitroglyce-”

 

“Absolutely not,” Hog said, and Rat scowled. The finished the boat up a little after the stars were out, and settled down into its belly together. Rat was pressed up against Hog’s own belly to keep nice and warm.

 

“Promise you won’t flip us tomorrow,” Rat grumbled against his skin.

 

Roadhog tangled a hand into his hair, and hummed. “Won’t send you swimming, Jamie.”

 

“Yeah, okay, mate. But I dunno how to swim so if you do flip us you carrying us both back. Me prosthetics will make me sink like a boner after a good round.”

 

His wording made Hog chuckle, and he rubbed at Jamie’s scalp. “Ain’t gunna let you drown, boss. Promise.”

  
“Thanks mate,” Junkrat said, muffled against Hog’s side. He felt weird. He felt calm despite the crash of waves on the beach, and the smell of salt. Maybe it was because Roadhog promised. Maybe it was because Jamie knew they had to stick together. He wasn’t sure, but he did fall asleep at some point which was a surprise of itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lil short thing fer you guys because i haven't forgot about you just been busy yyyYYYOOOO also someone come main Roadhog for me maining Rat.


	12. Lunch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the good news about having no plan is that there is no pressure. The bad news of having no plans was that i didn't plant stuff along like i would have in a more thought out piece. SO, there has been an edit to the most important meal of the day chapter. I will paste it below so you don't HAVE to go back. If i ever go over this whole thing again I will pepper more hints throughout instead of dropping them at the last minute like this. Fart. Noises.
> 
> The changes:
> 
>  
> 
> “Pfft. Should have sent him to the Outback. Would have showed him some real work,” Rat grumbled, and squished some sprinkles on his plate with his thumb. Roadhog rotated the plate until the untouched sandwich was closer to Rat. The thinner man scowled, and took a vindictive bite out of it.
> 
> “How’d you get all this info, McCree?” Lucio asked. McCree winked and sipped his coffee.
> 
> “Inside source.”
> 
> “He doesn’t want to kiss and tell,” Hana said. McCree choked on his coffee again.
> 
> “Aw, cute,” Lucio said.
> 
> “That’s not, I’m not, shut up!”
> 
> “Still, I wonder if that has anything to do with all the astrophysicists that have gone missing,” Mercy said to herself.
> 
> “What’s an astrophysicist?” Junkrat asked.
> 
> “Star scientist,” Lucio explained.
> 
> “Why do stars need their own scientists?” Rat followed up with.
> 
> “Stars are, like, the original explosions dumby,” Hana laughed, and started explaining thermonuclear reactions to Junkrat.

They left early in the morning where it wasn’t quite light, but it wasn’t dark. Junkrat was sure it was for some reason that Roadhog had said about how the smog coming off the steaming sea would mess with the sensors, or something. Junkrat hadn’t been listening truth be told.

 

Took one drop of saltwater to have Rat gasping, and clutching desperately to Roadhog’s arm. “Shit mate, shit. This is a shit idea. Let’s just, I don’t know, shoot at it from here yeah?”

 

“No,” Roadhog said, and wrestled his arm free. He used it to start the engine. Junkrat felt like he was going to vomit from the way the boat tilted too and fro.

 

“Oh mate,” Junkrat groaned. “I’m going to lose me breakfast.”

 

“Better not,” Hog said, and tried to shake off Junkrat’s panicked grabbing. Finally he decided to catch Rat under one arm, and hold both of his hands with that one. With the other he guided the boat. Rat grumbled and groaned under Hog’s hold from the spray of the sea.

 

“Don’t like this, mate,” Junkrat huffed, irritated and a bit damp. Hog just snorted at him. Hardly helped that the morning fog was so thick it was hard to see in front of them. More than once Hog had a last minute turn to avoid some rocks, or scrap metal.

 

The metal behemoth didn’t look much better up close. Roadhog killed the engine and they drifted the rest of the way underneath it. The structure was covered in radiation evolved barnacles that had teeth filled mouths on both sides. Junkrat curled his lip at them in disgust. The metal itself was rusted, slimy, and green from its constant life in the water. The mid water mine was big, huge. It could probably house over 300 people. However, it didn’t seem to be housing either at the moment even though they both knew there were, in fact, people aboard.

 

There was a docking deck level with the water. “Hold up Roadie,” Junkrat said, seriously. Roadhog dumped the anchor over the side, and they jerked to a halt a precious few inches from the metal of the deck. “Solid placement mate. Think you could do it again?”

 

“What did you see Rat?”

 

“They’ve wired it. Give me a minute,” Junkrat said, and started to lean over to de-boobytrap the landing.

 

Water splashed up and touched his arm. He squeaked, and flinched back. The entire little fucking boat rocked.

 

Roadhog grabbed him to hold him still so he would stop flailing, and making everything worse. The boat brushed up against the landing, and they both held their breath.

 

After a minute, and nothing happening, Roadhog growled at Junkrat. “I’m not going. To let. You fall. Now get to work.”

 

“Yeah. Yeah, okay,” Junkrat said with a hard swallow. “Just uh. Just hold onto me yeah? Better for me nerves.”

 

“Fine,” Hog huffed, and wrapped his huge hands around Junkrat’s middle. It helped. Make him feel more secure.

 

Junkrat made quick, efficient work of the wires, muttering to himself all the while. “Hm yes bombs underneath wonder how they got stuff that will ignite in liquid also has a-”

 

“Just focus on not killing us,” Roadhog grumbled. Rat flipped him off without looking at him, and cut the final wire.

 

“We’re good. Come on let’s get off this deathtrap,” Junkrat said, and grunted when Roadhog tossed him onto the deck. Rat scrambled into the center of ‘safety’, and waited for Roadhog. The big man clambered out of the little boat, and tossed Rat his grenade launcher (which he had left behind in his haste). Rat caught it. Barely.

 

“Slow down,” Hog said, catching him by the riptire on his back. “We don’t know what is up there.”

 

“I know what is not up there. The ocean. Let’s go,” he said, whining on the last word. Hog snorted, and pushed Rat behind him so he could take point. Grumbling, Rat followed.

 

It was dark and smelt piss poor in the place. Rat stuck close with Roadhog. There were fights where they would split up on purpose, where Rat would drive people to Hog, and then there were fights where Rat would keep people at bay. Hog would only get ‘em if they got too close. Then there was this; Roadhog reminding Junkrat that he was, despite everything, his bodyguard.

 

“What are those?” Roadhog asked as they rounded a corner. It was a poorly lit room full of huge tanks. Junkrat went to one of them with his strange limping walk, and wiped the dust from the label.

 

“Oil. Raw, I think. Dunno. Dunno much about how oil was farmed.”

 

“Was drilled for,” Hog clarified, and looked over the label with him. The advent of solar energy meant he didn’t understand much of the label either.

 

“Was good shit yeah, raw oil? Burned nice,” Junkrat said, and his fingers itched.

 

“Don’t think about it.”

 

“Thought this was a mining ship?”

 

“Me too. Maybe it was an oil rig until it became a miner,” Hog replied. The two of them moved along, counting the containers twice Hog’s height, and giving each other looks. “That omnic had said they had enough firepower to level the Outback again.”

 

“They’d need a nuclear reactor to do that, even if this is impressive,” Junkrat replied. Hog grunted in understanding. “Still, this shit could make a mess. Wonder what it tastes like.”

 

“Rat,” Hog growled in warning, and Rat jerked his hand back from the cool metal of the container with a sheepish giggle.

 

“Sorry Roadie.”

 

“Come on,” Hog huffed, and touched Rat’s shoulder for a moment in acceptance of the apology.

 

They came across their first signs of life three levels up, and at about midday. Hog knocked the guy out almost on reflex when they walked around the corner, and into him. The poor scav was taking a leak, and fell right into his own puddle when Hog took him out. “Oops,” Hog said, but he was chuckling.

 

“Oh that’s harsh mate,” Rat giggled. He watched, fascinated, by the way the guy’s own piss was soaking into his outfit. Was a weird outfit. Camo pants, and a dark shirt. There was a vest with a bared tooth dog on the back. “Pack guy, ya think?”

 

“Seems it.”

 

“Well, don’t mind me,” Rat said, and relieved the guy of his weapons and ammo. “This is nice shit mate. Look at it. Not a spot of rust,” Rat whispered as they continued on. They went more slowly this time, and more quietly.

 

“Where is it made?”

 

“Dunno,” Rat said, turning it over and over in his hands. “Oh hey, what’s this say?”

 

Hog took the offered handgun, and looked at the word Rat pointed out. “Vishkar.”

 

“What’s that?”

 

“I look like I know?”

 

“No, that,” Rat said, and pointed ahead of them. Hog looked up too, and pocketed the gun. The two of them approached a large glass observation window, and looked through it.

 

While the rest of the place was rusted and ruining, behind the glass was pristine and clinical. There were plenty of the Pack running around, but also two or three people in lab coats. But, that wasn’t what Rat and Hog focused on.

 

In the center of the room behind some kind of weird containment shield was a writhing ball of light. Despite the size of the shield, the ball of light was little bigger than one of Roadhog’s fists, maybe. If the barrier wasn’t some kind of tinted glass looking thing Junkrat was sure it would be impossible to see in the room the thing was so bright.

 

“What was that you were saying about nuclear reactors?” Hog asked.

 

“That ain’t a nuclear reactor Roadie,” Junkrat said. His face was pressed up against  the glass now, and his skin was skittering with possibilities. “Looks like an explosion already, being held in stasis. But why? To leach off the energy? That don’t make no sense,” he muttered to himself. “No explosion can sustain itself that way.  No unless it is a star or something,” he said, and giggled. “But that wouldn’t make no… oh.”

 

“What?”

 

“It is a nuclear reactor, I think, but not like…” Junkrat’s eyes flew around the room. “Yeah, that thing is in a vacuum, and they’ve got some sort of gravity-al control thing there, see?” he asked, and pointed. “I remember Winston showing me one once and remember Mercy saying something about how scientists were going missing?”

 

“Get to the point.”

 

“They got a baby star in there mate. Aw, look at it,” Junkrat said, and cooed. He wondered if this is what had kept Winston and Mercy up with worry over Talon’s antics. But what did that matter? These guys had the best of all explosions in a little bubble over there. Rat’s hands itched to go  _ touch  _ stuff. See if he could let it out. “Happy birthday lil star.”

 

“What do you know about stars?” Roadhog demanded.

 

“Hana was telling me about them after I asked. Remember? Over breakfast that one time. They got a lot of energy in ‘em. That lil guy could probably light up the world.”

 

“In what way?” Hog asked. His hand was on Rat’s shoulder now.

 

“Couple. Why?” Rat asked, and tore his eyes away from it. There was a shout from down the hall, and they turned in unison to see a couple of guys coming their way.

 

“What are you two doing in here? This is a restricted area!”

 

“Lay off the grenades near that thing, Rat,” Hog said, and filled the two with scrap. With that they were off.

 

“They gotta baby star mate! Wonder what they named it. Lil Spark, hopefully. Think I could touch it?”

 

“Think you’ve been touched by something else already,” Hog huffed. “We need to get back to the boat, get outta here.”

 

“Augh, the ocean again so soon? Do we have to?”

 

“You know how to turn that nightlight off?”

 

“Course you’d want to kill Lil Spark,” Rat grumbled, but followed anyways as Hog hit the stairs. The two of them went down down down. Rat could hear some more guys behind them, and Hog shoved him to the front.

 

It was a firefight on the way down from there. “Want me to light the oil?” Junkrat asked, his hand already reaching for a lighter.

 

“No,” Hog roared over his suppressing fire. Junkrat huffed, and grabbed the handgun they had taken earlier out of Hog’s pocket.

 

“Boo, party pooper,” he said, and shot at random. Aim had never been one of Junkrat’s strong points. It was why he used grenades.

 

Somehow they made it out of the oil cannister forest without setting even one alight (“No fun!” Rat whined, now being carried by Hog), and down to the steps leading to the lower deck.

 

They hit it, and then  _ hit  _ it as shots rained at their heads. “Fucker,” Hog snarled, and threw his hook out. He dragged the diver in close, and broke his neck. There were two or three more crawling up onto the deck. But that didn’t matter much, since their boat was on fire.

 

“Oh no,” Rat said, sarcastically, though he didn’t much like the thought of being stuck out on this metal pillar away from dry land much better than having to get back into the boat.

 

“That was our way out,” Hog growled, and stomped the head of one of the divers. They must have jumped from a level or two up, and exploded the boat’s engine. Rat joined in on the beating because he had wanted to be the one to do that.

 

“What we do now, mate?” Rat asked. He could hear more guys finding their way to the stairs.

 

“We’re going to swim.”

 

“ _ Fuck you we’re going to swim, _ ” Junkrat squealed, high pitched and afraid when Hog reached for him.

 

“Lay down your weapons, or my snipers fire,” came over the loudspeakers. The both of them froze. Rat looked at Hog, and Hod looked at him. There were a couple of red dots already playing on the surface of Hog’s mask. They were coming from out at sea. Rat glanced from the corner of his eyes to see a couple of small dinghies out there.

 

“Roadie?” Junkrat asked. Hog cursed, and then sighed.

 

“Best do as the cunt says, for now,” he said, quietly. Slowly, making a show of it, Roadhog put down his weapons.

 

“Now,” the voice boomed when Rat hesitated. He danced in place for a minute before throwing his launcher down with a huff.

 

“Vest, Rat,” Hog said.

 

“What- oh,” Rat said, and took off his vest of grenades. He set that, and the riptire, down much more gently.

 

“Hands on your heads. On your knees,” the voice, only closer now, said. Junkrat obeyed, and tangled his hands into his hair even as Roadhog did the same.

 

“Bet you're used to hearing that,” he spat back at the Pack guy leading the team down the stairs towards them. They all had guns trained on them, and who knew how many red dots on their backs. The new guy, the big guy by the look of it, didn’t reply. His men descended, and roughly pulled their arms behind their backs. They cuffed them. “These still warm, betcha they were just being used too,” Rat spat. He hated being cuffed. They were pulled, roughly, to their feet. Or, that is, Rat was pulled to his foot, and Hog was eventually told to get up.

 

Junkrat settled on glaring at the stupid ass fucking helmet the lead guy had on. He was about Junkrat’s height. There was a stupid dog motif painted onto the helmet, and Rat had a ‘bitch’ comment forming behind his bared teeth when the guy took the helmet off.

 

The hair was dark, and the eyes were happy if not also a bit confused.

 

Junkrat reeled back, and snapped his mouth shut. The constellation of freckles across the nose were familiar. The familiar stranger tilted his head, and opened his mouth, and he said- he said:

 

“Jamison?”


	13. Dinner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SUP YOU HUNGRY FUCKS DINNER IS SERVED THIS SHIT IS STRAIGHT OUT OF THE OVEN

There was a muddied taste of confusion in the air, and Roadhog had practically  _ felt  _ the anus of all of the peons present clench at the announcement of Rat’s name.

 

The buzzed cut man laughed out loud, and tossed his gun to a crony (who barely caught it). “Jamison Fawkes, as I live and breath! Knew Meandog was wrong about you!”

 

Roadhog stepped between the two. It didn’t take him much effort, and the men ‘holding’ him protested as they were pulled along for the ride. Roadhog growled at the man, who hesitated, and then his expression went dark. He put his hand back out for his gun.

 

“Y-eah,” Junkrat said. “Who wants to know?”

 

If anything that made the man’s face get even more grim. “What do you mean?”

 

“What do I mean what do I mean?” Junkrat asked, and Hog risked a glance back at him. He was looked at Hog for direction.

 

“Don’t you remember me, Jamie?” the man asked. Hog watched Rat’s brow furrow in confusion, and his eyes dart around like how they did when he was real scared.

 

“I-I-,” Junkrat’s eyes landed on the man’s face again. They kept flicking back and forth between him, and Hog, and he didn’t seem to be making any progress through the maze of his own fucked up head. His eyes got a little glazed.

 

“Give me back my fucking gun,” the man snarled, red faced now, and Roadhog snarled too. He got more firmly between the two of them because he was going to make damn sure there was a Hog sized barrier between Rat, and the next bullet aimed for him.

 

The man had turned and was in the process of pulling his gun back to himself when Junkrat gasped out, “Joey?” and it sounded strained.

 

The man, Joey, turned back. The red was gone from his face. Instead he looked delighted, and he let go of the weapon once more. “Jamie?”

 

“Me mate,” Junkrat said, and he rubbed his head like it would help get his shit back into place.

 

“Move this big tub of lard, let me get a look at-”

 

“Don’t call him that,” Junkrat snapped. It caused Joey to hesitate. “He’s my bodyguard. Damn good one too. No uh no need to be a prat about it.”

 

“Yeah, okay mate. Well, let him go your drongos!” Joey snapped, and suddenly Junkrat was free. He sniffed in distain at the men, and rubbed his human wrist with his metal hand. A moment later he was being embraced by this stranger. Hog was guided into taking a step back, and he allowed himself to be moved. Seemed this man from Junkrat’s past was more agreeable when confronted with their shared history. “Christ above what happened to you you crazy cunt! Look at your arm, your leg! Shit mate!”

 

Junkrat laughed, high and nervous, and allowed himself to be looked over though it made him twitchy. “Omnic didn’t help me,” Junkrat mumbled.

 

“That fucker. You find him yet?” Joey snapped at a nearby man who went tense.

 

“No sir, still in the wind. We are trying our best to-” Joey snatched up a gun, and shot the man in the head. He hummed, and kicked the body off the side of the deck. It fell in the water with a splash, and a cloud of red. The water churned where he sunk as whatever lurked below gladly finished the clean up job.

 

“Better be found by tonight,” Joey said to the rest of his men. In unison they replied with an affirmative. Junkrat was shaking now. He looked at Hog who held his wide eyed gaze. Then he was being wrapped up in Joey’s arm again, and being led up the steps. “Let me show you what I’ve been up to mate! You can tell me everything. Shit man, its been rough without you. You wouldn’t believe what Meandog put all us pups through to make the Pack. And all this time he was telling me you died! I knew he didn’t know anything!”

 

“Y-yeah,” Junkrat squeaked, and twisted back to look at Roadhog. Hog had already started dragging the men still holding him along to follow the two. Joey looked back too, and curled his lip a bit.

 

“Yeah we’ll uh…  Go put him in the caf yeah? Help yourself big guy.”

 

“I stick with him. It’s what he’s paying me for,” Hog growled.

 

“Yeah yeah, he’s in good hands mate. I got him,” Joey said. His hand clenched and unclenched at his side. Hog growled.

 

“It’s fine Roadie. Save me something sweet, yeah?” Rat said, real quick like, and stopped Roadhog from protesting.

 

“Doubt it,” Joey laughed. Hog just held Rat’s look before he nodded. “You guys can let go of him, yeah? Ain’t doing much either way,” Joey scoffed, and turned back around with his arm around Junkrat’s slim shoulders. He was huge in comparison to Rat. Not as tall, no, but twice his size in width. Maybe twice and a half. Made Roadhog bristle at being put in the cafeteria. Hardly mattered that the other men brought along his and Rat’s weapons. The fact his scrap gun was a short scuffle with the men present to his hand didn’t make him feel any better.

 

Neither did the muttering the men did while they thought he was eating the crisps he had made himself pick out. He had grabbed a lot of packaged sweets for Rat, but his stomach was rolling too much to eat himself.

 

“Can’t believe that is actually the same guy Joe talks about all the time,” one muttered.

 

“Meandog ain’t gunna like this.”

 

“Nah, not one bit. Wonder if we can get a transfer first. Hate’t see who Joe would pick when it came down to it. Hate to be in the crossfire when he does. This fuckers are with Overwatch after all. Wonder what they’d do if-”

 

“You’d think they’d send D.Va or Lucio? I’d love an autograph.”

 

“The only ‘graph you’d get is a skin one after they was done with you, you big tit.”

 

“Oh eat it.”

 

Roadhog was wondering too what was going to be happening now. Made him itch even more to take his shit back, and go find the two himself. They think they’d have a fight on their hands if it came down to Meandog versus Joey? They had no clue what it would be like if it came down to Roadhog having to get Junkrat.

 

He’d rip this place apart with his bare fucking hands if that unbalanced motherfucker so much as bruised Junkrat.

 

Roadhog forced another tasteless chip into his mouth. Wouldn’t be the first time he did something like that for someone he-- well. The taste of burning metal could still hit him, at unprepared moments, when he touched the memories in his head about his mother. About Mako’s mother, that is. For his whaea.

 

Aroha Rutledge had been, for lack of better term, one hell of a woman. She had put herself through college, paid off her and Mako’s father’s house in New Zealand, and paid off their car. After college (majoring in engineering, and some sort of science) she went on to get her doctorate. Aroha had been on the cusp of getting said doctorate when she became pregnant with Mako. She became Dr. Rutledge a few weeks after becoming Whaea. And, shortly after those two events, she became single in one fell stroke. Aroha had caught Mako’s father cheating, and had upped in left. She had done it in a single night, hadn’t bothered with a divorce, and had moved her and her infant to Australia. There she made several advances in green energy, and ocean cleaning efforts (her college work, and brilliant mind had secured her work). Then she had settled in with her son on a nice little solar farm out in the Outback. They had a field of sun catchers (solar panels she built herself that followed the path of the sun; they had been shaped as sunflowers). On that little farm they had had two horses, chickens, a rude cat, a couple of pigs, and each other. She had taught him Maori stories, and how to make his inhalers all by himself. She had sang him to sleep there, and tucked him in at night, and loved him. And he had loved her too.

 

Roadhog set aside the crushed crisp bag. He had clenched his fist.

 

Mako had been thirteen when the omnic crisis started, and sixteen when he joined the Australian Liberation Front.

 

Mako had been seventeen years six months and four days old when his mother was murdered. He hadn’t been home, on the farm, but his enemies still went there and took took took from him. He had been eighteen when he became an enforcer for the Fist. Same year as he had gotten the resources to find her murderers, and teach them just how big a mistake they had made. He knew, from various sources, it was still impossible for anything to grow in the spot that had once been their hideout.

 

Didn’t fix the hole that had been made in Mako. Didn’t stop Roadhog from crawling out of that dark place.

 

Roadhog itched to get his fucking gun, and go get his fucking boss. He was ready to get the fuck out of Australia, and never fucking come back. He would let Junkrat blow it off the face of the fucking earth if the twitchy cunt had half a thought to.

 

Roadhog was near jumping out of his seat when Joey and Junkrat came into the sterile cafeteria. Both of them seemed more at ease, and when Junkrat angled towards Roadhog he was able to relax, finally.

 

“S’nice, innit? All of it? I’ve done real good. Everyone says so,” Joey said, and smiled. It looked, to Roadhog, more like he was baring his teeth.

 

“Yeah mate. This is all real impressive,” Junkrat agreed. He sat across from Roadhog. Hog tensed right back up at the feral look Joey shot his way as he sat too.

 

Junkrat’s foot nudged Hog’s boot under the table. He relaxed again.

 

“Its a solar farm! S’all it is Roadie, one big ol’ solar farm” Junkrat said with a laugh. “Only, they are making their own manure and seeds and rain!”

 

Roadhog grunted at that. He knew solar farms. This wasn’t no fucking solar farm.

 

“Yeah, the clouds here are so thick, we can’t get no good proper farms going. Keep the sun out. So we figured, hell, may as well bring the sun down under the clouds then we don’t have to worry it. Everyone can have electricity again, can have light. Won’t need to be no more dark in the outback,” Joey said. “Doing better than all the other projects, even-”

 

“Hey, boss, maybe we shouldn’t tell all these guys-”

 

“I fucking ask you?” Joey demanded, cutting off the man that had piped up. Junkrat went tense, so Hog went tense. Everyone in the room, truth be told, went tense. After a second the man from Rat’s past turned his attention back to them. “Doesn’t matter anyways. We won’t need those other projects after mine hits its point.”

 

“Why you out on the ocean?” Hog grunted.

 

“What?” Joey asked, and looked at him properly for the first time.

 

“Why you out on the ocean? Why not in the middle to transport the energy more easily? Gunna take a lot of batteries or wires to share it all.”

 

“Mm, yeah, we’ve talked about that actually. I thought it was weird at first, but all the scientists assured me it was better this way. We can drown any of the little gas burners if they get too outta control. Proved helpful a couple of times. Not the best for the environment, but, heh, a few cooked fishies will be worth it when we can light up the country again.”

 

“Meandog never seemed like much of a humanitarian to me,” Roadhog huffed. Joey went real still, and looked at him out of the corner of his eyes. He had turned back to Rat to switch topics.

 

“Wouldn’t talk shit ‘bout him if I was you. Can do shit nightmares piss themselves about, mate,” he said, low and harsh. Roadhog gave a noncommittal grunt, but didn’t push it. Junkrat had gone tense again. “Anyways, I was talking with Jamison here, big guy,” Joey said, and threw his arm around Rat’s shoulders. Rat’s eyes got all wide again, and flicked around looking for a way out. “Now that he is back with me, don’t think we need you ‘round. I’ve got a ship that can-”

 

“No.”

 

“Bring you back to dry land and-”

 

“No.”

 

“Drop you off nice and-”

 

“No,” Roadhog said. He did not yell it. He said it real quiet like. Even his ragged ass breathing got real quiet.

 

Joey took his arm off of Junkrat, and leaned back elbows on the table. “You hard of hearing, mate?”

 

“No. And I stick with him,” Roadhog said. He knew crazy. He tasted it every single fucking day for the past however many years since Junkrat found him. He knew its flavor, and its texture. Knew what to spit out, and what to suck up and swallow.

 

And what to put right down the fucking garbage disposal.

 

Whatever Meandog had done to this boy had certainly given him the other man’s nature. Roadhog saw it in the way Joey’s men tiptoed around their boss, on Joey’s drop of a hat change in mood. Roadhog didn’t remember much about the other enforcer, but he knew Junkrat. He knew that Rat would never have been able to stick with someone as much as the child he was seemed to have.

 

“Besides,” Roadhog said, because he knew the taste of crazy. And damn didn’t he know how to serve that fucking dish. “Overwatch is expecting us back. Both of us. That scientist monkey has a lot of guns. Ain’t no sun in a bottle, but some impressive shit. We both don’t get back all safe and sound? Don’t think they’d be too please.”

 

Joey seemed to weigh this.

 

“My contract is at Overwatch base. We go back, he signs off on it, I’m gone,” Roadhog added. After a moment Joey leaned back with a sharp smile.

 

“Damn. Real proffesional, your man.”

 

“Yeah,” Rat agreed. His voice cracked.

 

“Well, as I was saying. I have a boat being readied for him. Guess you will have to be on it. Meandog won’t be none too happy if I have Overwatch poking around. Nosey bastards would probably take the glory for themselves. Not like they’ve ever done nothing for us here,” he said, and spat. “But you will come back right after?” he asked, and turned to Junkrat. Roadhog saw a glimpse of what must have been the boy this man once was by the way he gently put a hand on Rat’s shoulder.

 

Rat gave him a tight smile “Yeah, ‘crouse mate. We’ll stick together. Promise.” Joey beamed.

 

Rat ate a little of what Roadhog had grabbed for him. He wasn’t about to force a bunch of food on the man, not with the dangerous atmosphere or the upcoming boat ride. Joey filled up the silence with chatter much like how Junkrat usually did. He kept telling Rat about all the things the two of them would do when Rat got back, and everything.

 

Joey got more tense, more uncomfortable, and more clingy after they left the caf and made their way down to the boat. “They will bring you to our dock on the coast, and from there a jeep will take you to our airfield. The pilot has been told to bring you wherever you need to go. Will you tell him how long you will take? He can wait for you, fly you right back.”

 

“Sure,” Rat said, and allowed Joey to have not only his arm around his shoulders, but holding his metal hand tight.

 

“I’m so sorry about your arm mate, I’m so sorry about not listening. I should have listened. But, I mean, it will all be fine now, right? We will be together again. And not in no hole in a broken building struggling for shit. I am a Beta for Meandog. Don’t want for nothing. Food, booze, women,  _ water.  _ Fucking snap of my fingers mate. And you will be right with me again, like before everything went to hell. Right? Right?”

 

Junkrat stopped, and turned, and took both of Joey’s hands. Roadhog watched them with one eye, watched the two men on the boat with the other. He didn’t like any of this. Would rather take the boat by himself, and find his own way back to base. Would like to lock Junkrat up tight and safe in their apartment, and blow this place off the face of the earth with an airstrike.

 

“I’m going to come back for you mate. I was always going to. Just got a bit lost along the way, bit held up. Ain’t gunna let that happen to you again. Ain’t gunna leave you alone. Not to anyone, not even Meandog. Never meant to,” Junkrat said, and damn if he didn’t sound sincere.

 

Roadhog looked at him, looked at him real hard, because fuck if he didn’t know the taste of Jamison ‘Junkrat’ Fawkes’ crazy.

 

“Okay. Okay, right. Yeah. Sorry to put you in a boat, mate, know you don’t like it.”

 

“Oh come off it ya floof. I’ll be fine,” Rat said, but still paled when they turned to the military grade dinghy. “Uh… age before beauty, Roadie?”

 

“Feel free to get on then.”

 

“Fucker,” Junkrat said with a high chuckle. He was still holding onto Joey, and his knuckles were white. Roadhog gently eased himself into the dinghy to make sure it took his weight. He noticed their weapons (except for the huge riptire) sitting with the two men. One for driving the boat, the other with a rifle for any ambitious sea critters. Was the standard, really, for Aussie sea travel on a boat this size.

 

He turned, and held out his big hands for Junkrat to make sure he got on safe. Joey glowered at him, but was careful to make sure Junkrat got off the firm deck to his hold without getting wet. “Jamison,” Joey said.

 

“Yea-” Joey dipped in quick, and pressed a kiss to Junkrat’s partially opened mouth. When he pulled back his face was a bit red, but he looked serious as a bullet.

 

“I’ll see you soon mate.”

 

Junkrat’s mouth moved without words, and Joey smiled. It wasn’t the sharp smile he had been giving all day, but a soft one that fit a boy named Joey. Then he was straightening back up, and his face was going hard. He gave a nod to his two men. Joey unhooked the dinghy himself, and watched them go. Roadhog watched with Junkrat till he was out of sight.

 

“Did he…?”

 

“Never had before?”

 

“No,” Junkrat said. It was a weird mixture of awed and broken. “Always thought he would, but never did. Roadie-”

 

“I know,” Roadhog said with a big sigh because he knew the taste of Junkrat’s crazy.

 

They both heard the click of the safety coming off the gun on the other end of the boat when they pulled into a cove.

 

Roadhog threw Junkrat down into the belly of the boat, and ducked over him. The bullet grazed his back. Stupid fucker didn’t get another shot off before Roadhog had his neck in hand, and broke it. The other man wasn’t armed, drongo, and seemed to be debating between Hog and the water.

 

He chose wrong, and stayed in the boat.

 

Hog tossed the dead man overboard, and grabbed the other by the front of his shirt. “Not your smartest choice, mate.”

 

“Tell me about it,” the man squeaked. “Anything I can do to live?”

 

“Talk. Fast.”

 

“How you think Joe didn’t know ‘bout your boy back there? Meandog always knew that would be trouble, if these two came across each other. Real pissed when you two joined Overwatch, and suddenly your boy’s face was everywhere. We all was ordered to keep that message clear of Joe. Why we is out on the ocean. Sure what he said was true, but also fucking hard to get internet and cable at here. No news mate. Told us if we ever came across you two to kill you. No questions asked. He spent too much time on Joe to lose him.”

 

“Yeah? Meandog ain’t here. I am.”

 

“Meandog is a monster. I’ll pick you any day. You at least know how to loyal to someone. Man would kill and eat his own kin if he got peckish.”

 

“Roadie,” Junkrat whined from the other end of the rocking boat. Roadhog glanced at him. He was clinging to the rubber side, and looking back at the way they came.

 

“What did Meandog do to him?”

 

“Dunno mate, not for sure. Only does it to Betas. Kills ‘em, brings ‘em back. That’s what they say. Makes them… makes them like him.”

 

“What do you-”

 

“Dunno mate, honest. I don’t. Never want to neither, after seeing what it made Joe. Was in his recruitment group. Man is a monster now, like Meandog.”

 

Roadhog huffed. “Thanks. Now strip. You in for a bit of a swim.”

 

“Fuck,” the man said, but obeyed. Roadhog let him keep a canteen, and gave his naked ass a starting toss towards shore. His life was up to him now.

 

“Roadhog-”

 

“I know,” Roadhog said, and sat at the engine. He took the rudder in hand.

 

“We can’t leave him, please, I can’t leave him again. Not like this, I-”

 

“I said I know,” Roadhog rumbled. Junkrat looked back at him, finally, and blinked his damp eyes.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah,” Roadhog said because fuck if he didn’t. It was a distinct taste in his goddamned mouth.


	14. Dessert

 

“They are doing what?” Mercy gasped. Junkrat winced, and covered his ears from the feedback of the holo. The doctor groaned, and rubbed her temples. “I cannot believe this! Making a star!”

 

“At least we know where the scientists are now,” Winston huffed behind her. At the moment Junkrat and Roadhog were bunkered down in a small ocean cave. The boat was pulled up onto the sandy beach, and the two of them had pulled a tarp out of it to sit on. They somehow had gotten somewhat of a signal out to the unofficial leaders of Overwatch.

 

Junkrat had been terrified that Roadhog had gone back on his word when they pulled into the cave, but the big man had put a hand on his shoulder. “S’not safe yet. Gotta wait,” he had said. They needed to wait for sunset. The change of temperature would cause enough interference with the sensors of the ship they’d be able to board without notice again. Or something like that. Rat hadn’t really listened to the reason.. Till then they wanted to make sure someone on the outside knew what was up, and maybe get a bit of advice.

 

“The plan is structurally sound, though not with the equipment you described., Athena is looking into it now. Her readings aren’t making me comfortable with a star on the earth’s surface.,” Winston said, though he was starting to get excited. “But a wonderful idea nonetheless. One we should look into, the power it would be able to--”

 

“The destruction it could birth,” Mercy interrupted. Winston hrrmped, but nodded. “Tell us again about this Meandog, and what he has made.”

 

Junkrat let Roadhog do the talking, and stayed leaned against him back to back. He was tired. Both his prosthetics were off at the moment, as his stumps were starting to ache. There had been some sand caught in between the metal and his skin. The former was unscathed, the latter now bore a number of small scrapes. They stung and annoyed, but wouldn’t kill him.

 

Roadie explained, again, what he knew about Meandog. Explained the Pack. Explained that Meandog did something to his betas, made them ‘like him’ and ‘into monsters’ though neither of them knew what that meant.

 

All Junkrat could think about was Joey. He had forgotten him. Had forgotten his  _ name.  _ And Joey  _ knew.  _ And he still wanted Junkrat. Wanted him back so bad he didn’t ever want him to leave. Rat wanted him too, but not with Meandog. Wanted to bring him back to Overwatch, and have Roadie protect both of them. Shit, with how big Joe had gotten he could help Rat protect Roadie too. Lucio and Hana would like him, Rat was sure. They’d go back and get him, Rat and Roadie, and bring him back to Overwatch, and Rat wouldn’t ever forget his name again.

 

Only, he  _ knew  _ Rat forgot him already. And he hadn’t forgotten Rat. He had spent the last decade and some remembering how his friend didn’t come after him.

 

Rat found his hand tangled in his hair, and pulling.

 

“Jamie? Are you alright?” Mercy asked, and Rat flinched.

 

Roadhog caught his hand, and eased his fingers away from his scalp. He put a plastic wrapped treat in his hand. “Eat that Rat.”

 

“Okay,” Rat said automatically, and ripped it open with his teeth. He spat out the plastic, and tore into the sugar. He didn’t taste much.

 

“Jamison’s friend is the beta on the boat,” Roadhog said to the two. A glance passed between the two.

 

“Jamie--”

 

“Don’t,” Hog said. Mercy scowled at him, but the set of Hog seemed to shut her up. Junkrat settled down more firmly behind Hog, and relaxed into his back. “Just tell us how to take this thing out without killing us with it.”

 

“You’ll need to destabilize the star, obviously, but that tends to make them blow bigger,” Winston said. “There are shields, yes?” Roadhog grunted an affirmative. “Perhaps if you rerouted the power they are collecting from the star itself back into the shields the explosion would feed its own containment. But if that didn’t work if would just incinerate you all. Or turn into a blackhole which wouldn’t be ideal either.”

 

“Not very,” Mercy agreed dryly.

 

“It, however, seems the most plausible plan,” Athena said. Seemed she finished her nosing around, and was able to turn her attention back to the conversation. “I can provide a virus in their coding to interrupt the stabilizing elements to the star.”

 

“I can reroute the power,” Rat offered, though he was subdued.

 

“And I will keep the fuckers off you. Easy,” Hog said. Rat hummed an affirmative.

 

“I will be in their cameras. I will unleash the virus when I see that the power has been rerouted.”

 

“Shame we gotta kill it, the star. Seems a waste,” Rat muttered.

 

“Save the scientists as well,” Wisnton said, seriously. “We can recycle this idea, put it with the proper people, and it could help. Not just be a possible weapon for a madman.”

 

“How we know he ain’t actually trying to help the Outback?” Junkrat asked. “Ain’t like no one else ever did.” He was chewing on his nails now. Joe had worked so hard on his star maker, and they were going to blow it up. Didn’t seem right. So what if it was thanks to Meandog?

 

“Jamie, you can’t actually believe that Meandog means anything good with this, could you?” Mercy asked, gently.

 

_ No,  _ Junkrat thought. He could still remember the blank face Meandog could have when beating a man to death with his bare hands.  _ No, not Meandog. But Joe could. _

 

“No,” he said.

 

“Right then. You’ll get the scientists out, reroute the power, and then destabilize the star. Easy. Call us when you are done.”

 

“Send other agents in case things go sideways,” Roadhog said.

 

“Agreed. Lucio and McCree will be enroute immediately.”

 

“Good,” Hog said, then cut the connection. He reached back, and took Rat’s fingers out of his mouth. “Knock that off.”

 

“Who is we to say who gets stars?” Junkrat asked suddenly. He felt tense, and wanted to pace, but his leg was off and Roadie’s back was comfy. “Maybe Meandog does just want to give the Outback light. Joey does, at least, and maybe he will do it even if Meandog don’t wanna.” Roadhog caught Junkrat under the arm, and easily maneuvered him to be on his lap. Rat leaned into his front, hid his face against the big man’s belly. “Joe worked real hard on it, Roadie.”

 

Roadie didn’t say anything, but hummed. He ran a big hand up and down Rat’s back.

 

“Meandog did something to him. He’s like me now. Not all there.” Hog made a noise of protest. “Oh shove it, I know I am a few bolts loose of properly sealed. But I’ve always been like this. Not Joe though. He was nice, he was good. Now he kills people for looking at him wrong. He ain’t Joe no’more, but he still is. I don’t get it. I don’t know… I don’t know what to do, Hog, but I don’t think I should leave him again like before.”

 

“You didn’t leave him before.”

 

“I did you big idiot. Left him to get all fucked up by Meandog. All this is me fault,” Rat said. He realized at some point he had started shaking.

 

Roadhog wrapped a big arm around him, and pulled him so tight it was like he was holding the vibrating pieces of Junkrat together. “You were a hurt sick kid. You ain’t never left no one. Hell, you ain’t ever left me alone even when I wished you would you mouthy cunt,” Hog said. He startled a laugh out of Rat, and Rat buried his face into Hog’s pec. He didn’t agree with Hog, he still had basically abandoned Joe, but it helped that Hog didn’t hate him for it. “It’ll be alright Rat, Jamie. We ain’t leaving him this time. We’ll bring him back, get the doc to look at him, make him golden again.”

 

“Yeah, okay,” Rat said, and clung to Hog with his human arm. He took a few shaky breaths, and leaned back to look at Hog. He didn’t say anything, just looked real good. After a bit Hog relaxed his hold, and fidgeted.

 

“What?”

 

“Nothing, just looking at ‘cha. Wanna make sure I can remember you real good.”

 

“What you gotta remember me for?” Hog huffed. Junkrat blinked at him, but then Hog was ruffling his hair in the way that made Junkrat snarl even though it felt nice. “I ain’t going nowhere.”

 

“Yeah yeah righto mate, cut it,” Rat said, laughing, and fending him off with his hand and his stump. “Just… just wanted to make sure, that’s all. I don’t wanna go forgetin’ ya do I? Accidently send a lil popper your way, make you squeal.”

 

“Keep talking like that, and I won’t be the one squealing,” Hog growled, and Rat laughed high and delighted. After a beat Roadie laughed too. “Here, settle down. Sleep a bit. We’ve been up for a while. You set up traps?”

 

“You think Imma fuckin’ dingo?”

 

“Nah,” Roadhog said, and ruffled Rat’s hair again. He settled Rat back onto the tarp, and shifted the smelly sand around a bit so it made a pillow under the plastic. He then did the same for himself, and settled down next to Rat. “You got a timer on you?”

 

“Always, why you need to blow something up?”

 

“No. Set it to go off near dark,” Hog said. Rat hummed in understanding, and dialed the timer accordingly. Even in the sea cave it was getting nearly unbearably hot. Least no sea monsters would be interested in braving the crashing waves against the rocks. Anything else that would try to get it had a good number of booby traps a la Junkrat to contend with.

 

Junkrat grunted, and growled, and tossed around a bit till his back was just barely touching against Roadhog’s arm. Secure in the knowledge there weren’t nothing going to sneak up behind him he was able to let his eyes close.

 

Rat woke with a sharp breath when it went off, and snatched it up. He stopped the ringing, and looked over to where Hog had shifted a bit. At some point the big lug had put his hand against Rat’s back. Rat himself hadn’t moved much.

 

He dragged his prosthetics over, and blew the sand out of their connections so he wouldn’t get more scratches. He then put them back on, and patted Hog’s arm.

 

“Wuzzit?” Hog mumbled, then huffed a few times. He rolled over, sat up on his knees, and stayed there for a minute while he woke up. “You good?”

 

“Guess so. No one came in. None of me traps went off,” Rat said. He had started to collect them while Hog woke up. “Well, ‘cept this one. Want some crab legs mate?” Junkrat asked with a laugh, and held up the beartrap with the crab crushed in it. It was about the size of the trap itself, with its legs the length of Rat’s forearm.

 

“Maybe later,” Roadie said with a huffed laugh, and got to his feet with a groan.

 

They left the tarp, and got into the boat. There was an unspoken agreement that they might not be leaving with the same vehicle.

 

The rig was not any less ominous in the dark.

 

Junkrat clung to Roadhog as the sea pushed them around. He really, really didn’t want to end up in the dark water. Once in his life had been enough, thank you. Roadhog handled the boat well enough in Junkrat’s experience. It pulled up to the dock after a few, tense, minutes.

 

Roadhog easily snapped the two guards off the platform against the water with his hook. The sea gladly swallowed them.

 

“Careful now,” Roadhog said. He helped Rat from the boat and onto the metal. “You got the grand tour. Where should your man be?”

 

Junkrat felt weird with Joe being referred to as his man, but he brushed that aside. “His quarters, maybe. Would make sense, ya think?”

 

“As much as anything,” Hog said, and stopped Rat from taking off. He knelt, pulled out some fabric, and wrapped it around the bottom of his peg leg. “Quiet the tapping.”

 

“Good thinking mate,” Rat whispered, and then the two of them were off with Rat leading the way. Somehow he remembered how to get around without much of a problem. Somehow they didn’t run into any of the Pack. Somehow, everything was going off with a hitch.

 

Joe’s door was unlocked, and opened easily to Rat’s gently push. He, and Roadie, slipped in. “Watch the door mate,” Rat whispered. Hog nodded, and stood before it. Rat snuck deeper into the quarters. “Joey?”

 

He was met with silence. Joe’s rooms, like everything else on the ship, were full of rust and ruin (aside from where stars were born bright and shiny). There were hints of sophistication in the livingroom. A huge screen took up one wall, and Junkrat could only guess it was for communications with Meandog considering what the jack from earlier told them. There was a small bar, and a plush looking armchair.

 

Joe was passed out on it with an empty tumbler in his hand.

 

“Mate,” Junkrat said, and went to his side. He shook him a little.

 

“Jamie?” Joey slurred, and blinked unevenly at him. He had drool coming out of his mouth, smelt like stale sweat, and tired. He looked so tired, moreso than earlier when they were touring the ship. “How long was I out? That was quick. You came back already,” Joey said, and was smiling now. He might still be a bit drunk by the looks of him.

 

“‘Course mate, came back to gettcha. Ain’t gunna leave you alone ag-”

 

“Mm, no, but you didn’t come back,” Joe said, and pursed his lips a little. “You didn’t come back for me. You didn’t care, don’t care. Ain’t shit to you.” The stranger in Joey’s skin scowled, and brought his empty glass to his mouth. He frowned at finding it vacant.

 

“Ain’t true mate. You know me head wasn’t always a steel trap. But I came back for you now, wanna bring you to Overwatch mate. Make you a-”

 

“Overwatch,” Joe sneered, and lurched to his feet. He stumbled over to the bar, and splashed more alcohol out. It made it in the glass, mostly. “Overwatch is a bunch of fucks that stick their fingers in other people’s sockets.”

 

“They try to help people. Helped me, and-”

 

“Who you think gave the cunts that blew the Outback half to hell and back up the information they needed? Meandog told me it was them, all them. Showed me correspondence,” Joe growled, and tossed back his drink.

 

“Ain’t true mate, Meandog is nothing but a liar. You know that! That’s why I am here now, to get you away from him, to-” Junkrat yelped, and flinched when Joe hurled his glass at Rat. It shattered on the ground in a million broken pieces.

 

“Shut the fuck up Jamie. No, Junkrat isn’t it? Your nice new Overwatch name with your nice new Overwatch buddies. Left me all on me own with Meandog. Don’t talk shit about him. He is a great man, better than you or any of those Overcunts will  _ ever  _ be! He remade me into something stronger, better, than anything out there.”

 

“He ruined you,” Junkrat whispered, and felt his lip tremble because the man before him was a stranger with Joe’s face.

 

“He made me better,” Joe said, and started to laugh in a way that was a lot like how Junkrat laughed only it was darker and more dangerous. Smoke started to come out of Joe’s mouth. “Let me show you, Junkrat, let me show you what he made me. Let me show you what I became, because of you!” He howled the last word and it was like a star was born in Joe’s chest. There was a flare of light- red, orange, blue- so hot that Junkrat felt a near immediate sunburn slap across his front. He stumbled back, and threw up his hands with a cry.

 

It was lucky he did. A huge claw made of fire and smoke slashed in the space he had just been in, and melted the floor it came into contact with. Where Joe’s face had been there was a muzzle of black laced with light. Whatever werewolf like creature Joe had become, had been made into, looked like lava.

 

It was beautiful despite how Junkrat wanted to vomit.

 

“I’ll kill you, I’ll kill everyone, all of Overwatch. You won’t forget me again,” Joe hissed out from between a snarled muzzle. Rat was frozen in place despite feeling his skin start to peel from the proximity to the heat of this, this thing. It howled, and Joe shuddered as the air seared across his cheek. The other paw was being lifted in preparation to be brought down.

 

There was a jerk low in Rat’s stomach, and he wheezed as he was snatched back just before the paw hit again. He lost the rest of his breath when he hit back into Roadhog, and Roadhog snapped his arm around him. His eyes watered at the pain of the superheated metal of the hook on his bare skin. It fell away mercifully quick (hopefully just second degree burns; no time to look right now).

 

The thing melting through the floor in front of them huffed in annoyance, and then barked and lunged. Roadhog was quicker, and smashed back through the door out into the hall. He slammed it back closed in Joe’s lupine face. There was an annoyed snarl before another slash of those lava paws, and the door was just gone. The monster slammed into the opposite wall, and went through it, in its haste to catch them.

 

“Think it’s time we drown this fucker,” Roadhog huffed as he ran. He was carrying Jamie.

 

“Let’s go kill us a star,” Junkrat agreed. He was glad neither had time to notice the tears on his face. Fuck the burns hurt. Junkrat shouted out directions to Hog over the sound of their pursuer. Dangerous as the heat of the lava wolf was, it was also slowing it down. Eat step melted the floor so much that it was like Joe must be running through mud. Sometimes he even nearly fell through the floor.

 

“Get us a clear jump,” Roadhog grunted as they skidded around the corner to see the glass observatory window they had seen earlier. Junkrat gasped an affirmative, and threw his concussion mine with surprising accuracy.

 

It blew the window out a moment before they were jumping through the glass and smoke.

 

Roadhog landed with a resounding thud in the sterile lab room below. There was a quiet moment, just a breath, broken only by the sound of the glass tinkling around them.

 

“Get the fuck outta here!” Rat howled, and let fly a few grenades to expedite the process. Didn’t take much for the soft men and women to get moving. Roadhog set Rat on his feet both real and hand made. He gave him a careful shove to get him moving, and turned to give suppressing fire to the men now taking action against them. Rat yelped, and dodged behind some panels as bullets plinked on the metal. He limped around the room in search of the screen he needed.

 

He found it in between dodging bullets, and lobbing grenades. His fingers flew over the keys as he worked his magic into turning the shields into a containment field powered by the star’s own light.

 

“Good work,” Athena said over the loudspeaker, and, almost immediately, the star began to distort and collapse. Rat yelped again, and hit the floor behind the computer he was at. A ball of what seemed pure energy exploded across it.

 

Rat peeked out to see a flash of a copper face, and fancy metal arm in a blue circle. The scientists were running through it, and disappearing. The long haired woman turned her head with a sneer, as if hearing something call behind her. She casted one more furious, disgusted look at the room before pulling back into the blue circle. Almost immediately it disappeared.

 

“Incoming threat,” Athena said over the loudspeakers, a second before another howl shook the place.

 

“Time to go Roadie!” Rat shouted, and turned to find his bodyguard. He turned in time to see Joe flinging himself at Roadhog, and Roadhog being sent flying. The big man landed on his back with a grunt, and he lay still, smoking.

 

Rat howled, and lobbed explosion after explosion at the monster to keep it at bay. It snarled, and dodged around the attacks. Still, Rat was somehow able to keep him away.

 

“We have an issue-”

 

“Tell me about it!” Rat snarled over the sounds of battle at Athena.

 

“Somehow the barriers have been reversed, and the main power shut off remotely. In a few moments the star will no longer be contained.”

 

“And we will be cooked alive,” Rat hissed, and looked around wildly while trying to keep Joe away from the still unmoving Hog. He looked at the support beams to the platform the star was held above. “Sorry Lil Spark,” he said, and tossed a concussion mine at the beam. Between grenades he blew it.

 

“Fuck you Lil Spark,” Rat hissed when that did absolutely nothing.

 

“You left me!” Joe howled, and Rat threw himself to the side. In his neglect of keeping the monster at bay it had gotten closer. Rat let himself continue to roll closer to the star. From his spot on the floor he saw how Joe’s paws sunk slightly in the molten metal.

 

There was a moment of quiet in his head as everything clicked into place and tick tock tick tock ti- “I did! I fuckin left you because you were holding me back!” Rat snarled, and shot a grenade at Joe from his spot on the floor.

 

Joe snarled. He had been looming over Roadie, looking ready to kill his mate, but whipped around to find Rat with his burning eyes.

 

“You were nothing but a slow whining baby! Only thing you did was eat my food and drink my water,” Rat screamed. Joe roared, and charged.

 

Rat scrambled to his feet, and swung himself back behind the support beam. As predicted Joe sliced through it with his super heated arm. It buckled, and Rat hissed when some sprayed metal hit his arm. He continued running, and shouting behind him. “Wish I never remembered you, wish I had kept you all forgotten in my fucked up head!”

 

“Fuck you Jamison! Betraying fucking-” Rat yelped in pain when the next slice through one of the five beams came a little too close for comfort. He  _ felt  _ the blisters form along his back.

 

“Wished I could have kept you forgotten, so I never would have come looking for ya, so I’d never have to do this,” Jamie choked out at the third beam. He was in tears by the fourth, and the room was groaning with him. Everything hurt, and he couldn’t tell if Roadie was moving yet, and Joe was trying to kill him.

 

“Wish I had made you leave me,” Rat whispered at the base of the fifth. He had his head rested on it. He was tired.

 

Sun wind blew across the back of his neck, and left more blisters. He turned to see Joe staring at him with his burning eyes and his lava muzzle. “Wish I didn’t have to do this. Wish none of this had happened.”

 

Joe seemed to struggle. He had to keep dancing back and forwards to keep himself from falling through the melting floor. “Jamison…”

 

“I’m sorry, Joe. I never meant to leave you,” Rat whispered. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, and let his shoulders tremble for a second before squaring himself and sending a glare back to do what he had to do. “Even if you was a weak waste of space.”

 

Joe roared, and threw himself at Rat, even as Rat dropped a mine and used the explosion to send himself flying out of the way. Joe collided with the beam, and caught it to prevent himself from being thrown through whatever he hit.

 

Rat hit the ground with a grunt, and turned to see the entire structure with its dying swaying. Joe’s destruction of the support beams, and melting of the floor in the circle pattern were ensuring its downfall.

 

“Jamison!” Joe whined as he attempted to claw himself up from the sinkhole being made in the center of the room. He couldn’t get a grip with the way his hands kept melting the material beneath it. He was reaching for Rat now. Rat clenched his eyes shut, and turned his head away. He saw Roadie rolling, slowly, onto his side. His mate had a huge burn across his front.

 

With a rumbling roar the center gave way.

 

“Don’t leave me again!” Joe cried. Rat snapped his eyes back to him. He seemed to be shedding whatever it was that had made him monstrous. His skin wasn’t burning from the molten metal, but it was trapping him as it cooled just enough to harden again. “Please!”

 

It was dark hair and hopeful eyes that had kept Jamison alive, and damn him if it wasn’t the same that had him lurking forwards now even as Joe was falling towards the ocean below as the whole rig seemed to be collapsing in on itself. The star was throwing out angry arms of heat that the barriers were no longer containing.

 

Rat reached the edge of the hole even as the beam Joe was stuck in hit the water.

 

He didn’t think. He had left him once. He couldn’t do it again. They was supposed to stick together.

 

What Rat didn’t see was the hook Roadhog threw after him, or how it snapped in the air just above him before he hit the water. Didn’t see how Hog threw it, and his gun, to the sides before jumping in after him.

 

The water was boiling around the star, and Rat was sinking fast thanks to his metal bits. He caught up to Joe quickly, and grabbed onto the metal. He pulled, uselessly, to try to free him. Somehow he had managed to hold his breath, but his lungs were burning now. He gasped, and choked on water even as his ears were screaming from the ever increasing pressure.

 

He and Joe were struggling against the metal, but there weren’t no way it was going to budge now that the water had frozen it in place.

 

Rat squinted at Joe through the water that was burning his eyes. He wished things could have been different, that they wouldn’t be dying here under water. Made sense though, the two of them ending where they began.

 

Somehow through the blur of water Rat saw Joe smiling. “Thanks mate,” Joe said, bubbled, through the water. He touched Rat’s face, and Rat wanted to scream at him to knock that off and keep pulling. But he didn’t. He was already choking on water.

 

Rat didn’t see Joe unhook his arm, didn’t notice until the little less weight had him sinking at a slower pace than Joe and his beam. Rat tried to keep hold with his human hand, but it was hard to grip and things were getting dark. He tried reaching out for Joe, to catch the hand Joe was holding back to him, and all Rat could see in the fading light was how Joe’s smile was so blurry and sad.

 

And then it was dark, and all Rat could think was how he had seen a star die.

 

When he woke up again he did it coughing and confused. There was sand underneath him, but he couldn’t see anything.

 

With a muffled scream Rat slapped at his own face with his remaining arm. His hand found leather, and he pulled until whatever it was popped off his face.

 

He gasped in the salty air of the beach, and looked around wildly. Out to see was a bubbling, steaming mass that must have been the rig. To his right sitting at the water’s edge was a huge man with silver hair. Rat’s heart stopped in his chest from fear at the stranger so close to him when he was half drowned and without his arm.

 

And then he looked down ant his world seemed to rearrange itself again because a piggy face made out of black leather was looking back up at him.

 

When he looked at the man again, Roadhog was looking at him. Jamie felt his eyes go wide, but he didn’t say anything.

 

Roadhog’s hair was wet and limp around his face. He had silver stubble along his round jaw that was interrupted by scars. The worst were concentrated around his eyes. Seemed like sloppy brands, and sloppier cuts with a dull knife. It seemed a miracle that Roadie still had his eyes. His mouth was thick, and he had a bit of an underbite. And he was there, without the mask he never took off and hated people touching. It was in Rat’s hands, had been on his face.

 

Roadhog continued to look at Junkrat for a few more minutes. He seemed to be looking over his face for something. Rat didn’t know if he found it. He turned to look back out at the sea.

 

“You’re alive,” Roadhog said, without his mask, but his breath was still just as wheezy. His chest seemed to be shaking with effort it took to move air in and out of his lungs. Rat struggled forwards, and nudged Hog with his stump. He held out the mask. One of Roadhog’s huge hands covered it, and his, for a second. He gave Rat a squeeze before taking the mask though he didn’t put it back on yet. He pulled Rat closer to his side, and the two of them looked out at the ocean. They sat there while the bubbles slowly started to subside.

 

Roadhog’s arm tightened around Junkrat’s shoulders. “You’re gunna be alright.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine that Hog has a way to vacuum out anything in his mask in the event he needs to, and used that to get the water out when he put it on Jamison underwater to keep him from drowning. Had a hard time deciding on whose pov to do this from, but basically Hog putting the mask on Rat is what saved him. Inserted air into it with one of his healing cans or whatever. Look. Don't question it.
> 
> Also, smoke?? Like someone else we know?? Will I do anything with this?/? Probably not honestly but whatever. Lets pretend there is some BADDIE out there that synthesized something like what happened to Gabe, and is working with Meandog to get it tested. Gabe and Widowmaker are working against this organization while fucking shit up with talon. But again, dunno if I will DO anything with this so MEGA SHRUGS
> 
> welp that happened. btw if anyone draws anything from my shit HMU i WANNA SEE IT (been seeing a lot of fic inspired art on my tumblr lately and HOOK ME UP WITH THAT SHIT) Hope everyone has been enjoying the news about Ana, and Pokemon Go! And was this betaed or proofread? FUCK NO HAHAAA


	15. And a Show

D.Va and Lucio had been besides themselves when they saw Junkrat. He was burnt worse as any time the Outback itself had done to him, and missing one arm all over again. Lucio and D.Va’s worrying was cut off with Roadhog shunting them out of the room so that Mercy could work. Lucio was a medic in his own right, sure, but not to the level the blonde woman was.

 

“You best sit too,” she said to Hog, and he huffed at her. It was Jamie’s look that made him take a chair. It was a long couple of hours as she fussed over them.

 

Was a good couple of days before she released the two of them to their own quarters. It was the first time, in a long time, they could be separated from each other. Roadhog wasn’t sure how he felt when Junkrat spent a majority of his time away from him. He figured he was with his friends, and coping with his loss. Probably for the best with Roadie not being the wealth of compassion the others no doubt could be for him. Rat’s friend was gone, and Hog was nothing but relieved for the fact. The man had not meant to Hog what he had to Rat. Rat’s pain was Hog’s, but Hog’s peace of mind was not Rat’s. Hog didn’t have to worry looking out for another person, or have to protect Rat from someone he trusted anymore.

 

His own relief left a weird taste in his mouth, and his guilt over it made it worse.

 

It was at night that things were mostly more of the same. Rat would sneak into Hog’s room at night, and Hog would put a hand on his head until he could sleep.

 

Overwatch was in an uproar over the birth of stars on the company from India’s involvement but Hog was done with the matter in his own mind. Winston and Mercy would find someone to take Meandog out, or he would take himself out in his own time. Was the way of things. Jamie wasn’t out for blood, and Roadhog followed him.

 

Followed him wherever he went whenever he went there even if it was down to the beach in the middle of the godforsaken night. Junkrat wasn’t helping his own cause by making Roadhog go blindfolded, and letting him drive.

 

On the beach the slightly shorter man took off the blindfold. Hog could see that everyone else that had been on base was out on the sand already. The sky was wide and endless above them.

 

“Whazzit?” Hog grumbled because he had been in the middle of messing with his gun when Junkrat had come swinging in with his fixed up leg and brand-spanking new arm.

 

“Fireworks, remember mate? We was gunna set off fireworks. Wanted to put a little color in the world,” Junkrat said. He was dancing back and forth on his legs real and not in his excitement.

 

“Set ‘em off Rat we’ve been waiting all night!” D.Va called from where she was sitting with Lucio and Tracer. Lucio had some of his music playing. Not Hog’s taste, but it was being played quiet enough that it wasn’t setting his teeth on edge like usual.

 

Junkrat laughed and giggled and pulled his detonator out. He had decorated this one with a plethora of colors and stickers. He flicked open the cover for the button. His thumb twitched.

 

His thumb did not press down.

 

Junkrat looked at Roadhog then. Looked at him real hard. There was a strange look on his face, a look of quiet contemplation, or dawning understanding. He held the detonator out for Roadhog to take. “Wanna do the honors, mate?”

 

He’d been with the shit for years now, and had sampled each of the servings offered. Yeah, Roadhog was well acquainted with any dish Junkrat could serve up to him. He was starting to get an idea of what ingredients Jamison liked to use.

 

Roadhog, or maybe something that was before Roadhog but not quite, smiled under his mask. He took the detonator in hand. “I hold, you push.”

 

“Together. How I like it!” Rat said with a peal of his high pitched laughter. Hog chuckled too. How better to enjoy a meal, than with sharing it?

 

Rat’s finger missed the button when he tried to jab at it. He ended up holding onto Roadhog’s hand to steady them both, and finally found contact. Out at sea what must have been a barge full of explosives started going off to the enjoyment of the crowd. Back on the sand, Junkrat’s hand stayed on Raodhog’s.

 

Roadhog looked at Junkrat’s face during one of the more spectacular explosions. The other man glanced at him, saw him looking, and smiled wider before nodding back up at the flowers of fire painting the sky. Roadhog looked up, and continued smiling. He felt good. He felt full. There was a good taste in his mouth. He knew what he was tasting.

  
There were different tastes to Junkrat’s crazy, and Roadhog was nothing if not a connoisseur. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short ending, but tasteful I find.
> 
> Probably not the last I will do with these boys. Might be the last with this particular setting. Not sure! Remember 14 chapters ago when I said I might not write more?
> 
> Good times.
> 
> ANYWAYS, hope you all enjoyed and keep an eye out for more garbage children in dumpsters.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if I nailed their characters right, but I like him big and smol (though not actually smol). Let me tell you I don't think of nice things for Rat's backstory (i.e. his arm).


End file.
